Staff profile

I am a social anthropologist with specialisation in medical anthropology. My research interests include: economies and practices of care; governance; the state; nursing; hospitals; global health interventions (especially around HIV/AIDS and viral haemorrhagic fevers); development; community-based health care; and public health.

Current Research

My current research work is funded by an ERC starting grant, AliveAFRICA: Animals, Livelihoods and Wellbeing in Africa. This project explores changing animal-based economies in Kenya and Sierra Leone, and the implications of human-animal entanglements for health and well being. This project builds on previous research on zoonotic diseases and epidemic management in West Africa, with a particular focus on Lassa fever and Ebola virus disease. It also builds on my longstanding interest in issues around care, health governance, and relationships between insitituions, modes of governance and health systems bureaucracies. I have worked extensively in Kenya where I carried out extended fieldwork with health managers in 2011 and in a hospital and community development organisation between 2005-7. My Ph.D. (Manchester, 2010) explored responses to HIV/AIDS in Western Kenya through the modality of care. Following my Ph.D. I spent two years as a research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine before joining the University of Durham in January 2013.

• Science
• Human animal relations
• West Africa, Sierra Leone
• Epidemics (especially HIV/AIDS and VHFs)
• Work and Management
• Health Governance
• Hospitals
• Community-Based Health Care
• Global Health and Development
• East Africa, Kenya

• Anthropology of Health
• Social Anthropology

• Durham First Generation Scholars Network
• The Anthrozoonoses Network: Social Science Engagements with Human-Animal Health

• 2018: Social Science Preparedness for Lassa fever, ESRC-GCRF IAA award £24.980
• 2015: Anthropology of Ebola: Transmission Dynamics and Outbreak Socialities (£82967.00 from ESRC)
• 2015: People, animals and infectious disease transmission: A new synthesis (£184889.00 from ESRC)
• 2014: Participatory behavioural change to reinforce infection prevention and control for Ebola Virus Disease in Sierra Leone, Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC) programme (DFID and Wellcome Trust £9155).

• 2023: : Editorial Board ;Medical Anthropology Quarterly
• 2023: : Member of the Committee for Biosocial Anthropology, Royal Anthropological Institute

Book review

• Brown, Hannah (2017). Ebola: How a People’s Science Helped End an Epidemic. The Journal of Development Studies Free eprint: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/W7uv5KWIQ6eEZkCeyvwt/full.

Chapter in book

• Brown, Hannah (2019). Complexity, Anthropology and Epidemics. In The Anthropology of Epidemics. Kelly, Ann H., Keck, Frédéric & Lynteris, Christos Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. 121.
• Prince, Ruth & Brown, Hannah (2016). Introduction: The politics and ethics of voluntary labour in Africa. In Volunteer Economies: The politics and ethics of voluntary labour in Africa. Prince, Ruth & Brown, Hannah James Currey.
• Brown, H. (2013). "Home-Based Care is not a new thing": Legacies of domestic governmentality in Western Kenya. In Making public health in Africa: Ethnographic perspectives. Prince, R. & Marsland, R. Ohio University Press.

Edited book

• Prince, Ruth & Brown, Hannah (2016). Volunteer Economies: The politics and ethics of voluntary labour in Africa. African Issues. James Currey.

Edited Journal

• Brown, Hannah & Nading, Alex (2019). Human Animal Health in Medical Anthropology. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 33 (1).
• Brown, Hannah, Reed, Adam & Yarrow, Thomas (2017). Meetings: Ethnographies of organizational process, bureaucracy and assembly. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 23 (S1).
• Brown, Hannah & Prince, Ruth (2015). Focus on voluntary labour in East Africa. African Studies Review, 58 (2).

Journal Article

• Park, Sung-Joon, Brown, Hannah, Wema, Kennedy Muhindo, Gobat, Nina, Borchert, Matthias, Kalubi, Josepha, Komanda, Gaston & Morisho, Nene (2023). ‘Ebola is a business’ an analysis of the atmosphere of mistrust in the tenth Ebola epidemic in the DRC. Critical Public Health 33(3): 297-307.
• Zinsstag, Jakob, Kaiser-Grolimund, Andrea, Heitz-Tokpa, Kathrin, Sreedharan, Rajesh, Lubroth, Juan, Caya, François, Stone, Matthew, Brown, Hannah, Bonfoh, Bassirou, Dobell, Emily, Morgan, Dilys, Homaira, Nusrat, Kock, Richard, Hattendorf, Jan, Crump, Lisa, Mauti, Stephanie, del Rio Vilas, Victor, Saikat, Sohel, Zumla, Alimuddin, Heymann, David, Dar, Osman & de la Rocque, Stephane (2022). Advancing One Human-Environmental-Animal Health for Global Health Security: What does the evidence say? Lancet
• Ho, Lara Shiu-yi, Ratnayake, Ruwan, Ansumana, Rashid & Brown, Hannah (2021). A mixed-methods investigation to understand and improve the scaled-up infection prevention and control in primary care health facilities during the Ebola virus disease epidemic in Sierra Leone. BMC Public Health 21(1): 1603.
• Brown, Hannah & Marí Sáez, Almudena (2021). Ebola separations: trust, crisis, and ‘social distancing’ in West Africa. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 27(1): 9-29.
• Brown, Hannah (2020). Domestic labor as care and growth in western Kenya. Anthropology and Humanism 45(2): 245-254.
• Brown, Hannah & Nading, Alex (2019). Introduction: Human Animal Health in Medical Anthropology. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 33(1): 5-23.
• Bonwitt, Jesse, Dawson, Michael, Kaneh, Martin, Ansumana, Rashid, Sah, Foday, Brown, Hannah & Kelly, Ann H. (2018). Unintended Consequences of the 'Bushmeat Ban' in West Africa During the 2013-2016 Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic. Social Science and Medicine 200: 166-173.
• Bonwitt, J., Kandeh, M., Dawson, M., Ansumana, R., Sahr, F., Kelly, A. H. & Brown, H. (2017). Participation of women and children in hunting activities in Sierra Leone and implications for control of zoonotic infections. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 11(7): e0005699.
• Brown, H., Reed, A. & Yarrow, T. (2017). Introduction: towards an ethnography of meeting. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 23(S1): 10-26.
• Brown, H. & Green, M. (2017). Demonstrating development: meetings as management in Kenya's health sector. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 23(S1): 45-62.
• Bonwitt, J., Sáez, A.M., Lamin, J., Ansumana, R., Dawson, M., Buanie, J., Lamin, J., Sondufu, D., Borchert, M., Sahr, F., Fichet-Calvet, E. & Brown, Hannah (2017). At home with Mastomys and Rattus: human-rodent interactions and potential for primary transmission of Lassa virus in domestic spaces. American Journal of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene 96(4): 935-943.
• Ratnayake, R., Ho, L., Ansumana, R., Brown, H., Borchert, M., Miller, L., Kratz, T., McMahon, S. & Sahr, F. (2016). Improving Ebola infection prevention and control in primary healthcare facilities in Sierra Leone: a single-group pretest post-test, mixed-methods study. BMJ Global Health 1(4): e000103.
• Brown, Hannah (2016). Managerial relations in Kenyan health care: Empathy and the limits of governmentality. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 22(3): 591-609.
• McMahon, S., Ho, L., Brown, H., Miller, L., Ansumana, R. & Kennedy, C. (2016). Healthcare providers on the frontlines: A qualitative investigation of the social and emotional impact of delivering health services during Sierra Leone’s Ebola epidemic. Health Policy and Planning 31(9): 1232-1239.
• Brown, Hannah & Green, Maia (2015). At the Service of Community Development: The Professionalization of Volunteer Work in Kenya and Tanzania. African Studies Review 85(02): 63-84.
• Brown, H. (2015). Global health partnerships, governance, and sovereign responsibility in western Kenya. American Ethnologist 42(2): 340-355.
• Brown, Hannah, Kelly, Ann H., Marí Sáez, Almudena, Fichet-Calvet, Elisabeth, Ansumana, Rashid, Bonwitt, Jesse, Magassouba, N'Faly, Sahr, Foday & Borchert, Matthias (2015). Extending the ‘social’ Anthropological contributions to the study of viral haemorrhagic fevers. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 9(4): e0003651.
• Brown, Hannah & Prince, Ruth (2015). Introduction. Volunteer Labour: Pasts and Futures of Work, Development, and Citizenship in East Africa. 58(2): 29-42.
• Brown, H. & Kelly, A.H. (2014). Material Proximities and Hotspots: Toward an Anthropology of Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 28(2): 280-303.
• Brown, H. (2012). Hospital domestics: Care work in a Kenyan hospital. Space and Culture 15(1): 18-30.
• Brown, H. (2010). "If we sympathise with them they'll relax": Fear/respect and medical care in a Kenyan hospital. Medische Antropologie 22(1): 125-142.

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Billaud, Julie, Thedvall, Renita, Sandler, Jen, Brown, Hannah, Reed, Adam & Yarrow, Thomas (2017). First virtual meeting on meeting.
• Billaud, Julie, Thedvall, Renita, Sandler, Jen, Brown, Hannah, Reed, Adam & Yarrow, Thomas (2017). Second virtual meeting on meeting.
• Bonwitt, Jesse & Brown, Hannah (2017). PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDS) journal, live “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) chat.
• (2015). Spotlight: Managing health crises after Ebola. Sci Dev Net
• Marí Sáez,Almudena, Kelly, Ann H. & Brown, Hannah (2014). Apuntes sobre el paciente cero: antropología en los tiempos del ébola. Lamarea
• (2014). Ebola in focus: Rapid Response Roundtable.
• Marí Sáez, Almudena, Kelly, Ann H. & Brown, Hannah (2014). Notes from Case Zero: Anthropology in the time of Ebola. http://somatosphere.net/

Report

• Lamarque, Hugh & Brown, Hannah (2022). Key Considerations: Cross-Border Dynamics Between Uganda and Kenya in the Context of the Outbreak of Ebola, 2022. Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform.