Global Health Interventions: The Military, the Magic Bullet, the Deterministic Model—and Intervention Otherwise

Abstract

“Intervention” is central to global health, but the significance and effects of how intervention is practiced are often taken for granted. This review takes interventions into health and medicine as subjects for ethnographic inquiry. We highlight three lines of anthropological contributions: studies of global health interventions that serve imperial and military objectives, studies of “magic bullet” interventions arising from laboratory science, and studies of interventions based on deterministic modeling techniques. We then outline examples of “intervention otherwise,” in which people build relations of solidarity and care through global health programming, design interventions to be interactive and adaptable, and use data and modeling to support health justice. Whereas many global health interventions reproduce western power hierarchies, intervention otherwise draws attention to alternative forms of knowledge, action, and expertise. Our analysis of lively and multivalent practices of intervention has implications for debates about the im/possibility of decolonizing global health. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume 52 is October 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Why Gerontology Needs Anthropology: Toward an Applied Anthropological Gerontology

“…For example, engagement with the participant-forward-and participant-centered approaches of anthropology, through ethnography and participant observation, could open the door to new avenues of research and discovery. Anthropologists can improve the design of health interventions by ensuring they are adaptable, interactive, and support health justice by drawing attention to forms of expertise, knowledge, and action grounded in communities (Yates-Doerr et al 2023). Likewise, understanding the needs of older individuals through their eyes-often an aim, but rarely successfully achieved in gerontology-would assist researchers in identifying the actual barriers to optimal health, rather than just what the researchers perceive.…”