Book Reviews by Anna Wood
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2017
Africa at LSE blog, 2017
This book opens with a meditation on how Africa's fate has long -since Antiquity -been decided fr... more This book opens with a meditation on how Africa's fate has long -since Antiquity -been decided from the outside. Its central thesis calls for the continent to move forward in a new way, locating itself at the centre. 'Se penser, se répresenter, se projeter' [To think itself, to represent itself, to project itself]. Afrotopos is a future, imagined the place. Far from a 'douce reverie' it is an 'active utopia' envisioned as a guide to new ways of living now. Afrotopia is foremost a critique of development; Felwine Sarr is an economist at Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis, Senegal. He is also a philosopher, poet, writer and musician and in his book he presents his broad vision of a new Africa.
Papers by Anna Wood
Social Science & Medicine , 2022
The turn towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in the past decade raises the question of the ro... more The turn towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in the past decade raises the question of the role of the state, following years of state withdrawal and a fragmented approach to public health. Senegal introduced its version of UHC, Couverture Maladie Universelle (CMU) in 2013 and this paper explores early efforts to fund it through the establishment of community-based health insurance (CBHI). The paper draws on ethnographic research at mutual health organisations, or mutuelles de santé as they are commonly referred to in francophone countries, which manage CBHI. The research was carried out as part of broader doctoral fieldwork on poverty and social protection in the capital, Dakar, in 2017-18. Responding to recent calls for the move away from the voluntary nature of CBHI with government subsidies and the professionalisation of management, this paper considers the financial strain that mutuelles were under. By drawing on the concept of 'improvisation' as it has come to be employed in recent ethnographies of health infrastructure in contexts of scarcity, the paper attends to the ways in which mutuelles and the voluntary workers that run them sought alternative forms of support, with a particular focus on patronage and partnership. I argue that what might appear to be very minimal gestures of support and material investment serve to maintain a sense of hope and potential in CMU, one however that is fragile and potentially unsustainable.
Citizen's Basic Income Trust, 2018
There will be no charge for attendance, but only those who register will be able to attend. Diffe... more There will be no charge for attendance, but only those who register will be able to attend. Different parts of the day are being organised by different LSE departments, and separate registrations will be required for the morning, the afternoon, and the evening debate.
Uploads
Book Reviews by Anna Wood
Papers by Anna Wood