School of Social and Political Science

Description

Chronic kidney disease uncertain etiology (CKDu) has become a major public health issue in Sri Lanka over the last few decades. In a context of lack of scientific consensus on the disease etiology, among more than thirty scientific hypotheses, drinking water polluted mainly by agrochemical toxins, is widely accepted as the culprit of CKDu, hence providing safe drinking water as the main disease prevention strategy. What methodological challenges anthropological research may confront in studying contested environmentally-induced diseases like CKDu? In which ways traditional ethnographic research methods could combine with interdisciplinary methods to enhance public participation in anthropological studies of chronic diseases in contested contexts? What does it mean to conduct a citizen science project in communities riven by internal disputes and disagreements? 

Based on a 14-month ethnographic fieldwork including a citizen science water testing project in a rural CKDu hotspot in Sri Lanka, which has been subjected to ample scientific and philanthropic interventions, I argue that citizen science has the potential to contribute to overcome such methodological challenges by reinforcing reflexivity, conceptualization and experimentation which are cornerstones of ethnographic research (cf. Holbraad and Pederson 2017).