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 centres on zoonotic diseases and epidemic management in West Africa, with a particular focus on Lassa fever and Ebola virus disease. This work builds upon a 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

• 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).

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

• 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 haemorrhagic 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)

• Bonwitt, Jesse & Brown, Hannah (2017). PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDS) journal, live “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) chat.
• 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.
• (2015). Spotlight: Managing health crises after Ebola. Sci Dev Net
• (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/
• Marí Sáez,Almudena, Kelly, Ann H. & Brown, Hannah (2014). Apuntes sobre el paciente cero: antropología en los tiempos del ébola. Lamarea