Making diabetes : the politics of diabetes diagnostics in Uganda

Diabetes is regarded as one of the most challenging global health issues of the 21st century. Especially countries with weak health infrastructure are struggling to deal with the increased demands this chronic disease entails.Tracing the effects of a diagnostic device, the glucometer, this book examines how it contributes to the making of diabetes in contemporary Uganda. Arlena S. Liggins demonstrates that depending on who uses the glucometer, the outcomes may go far beyond diagnosis. The book draws a complex picture of hopes and misplaced expectations, of trust and mistrust in a technology to which access in the first place is all but a given. Diabetes is regarded as one of the most challenging global health issues of the 21st century. Especially countries with weak health infrastructure are struggling to deal with the increased demands this chronic disease entails. Tracing the effects of a diagnostic device, the glucometer, this book examines how it contributes to the making of diabetes in contemporary Uganda. Arlena S. Liggins demonstrates that depending on who uses the glucometer, the outcomes may go far beyond diagnosis. The book draws a complex picture of hopes and misplaced expectations, of trust and mistrust in a technology to which access in the first place is all but a given. Medical Anthropology,Global Health,Uganda,Diabetes,Diagnosis,Medicine,Postcolonialism,Ethnology,Sociology of Medicine,Cultural Anthropology,Africa Cover 1 Contents 5 Abbreviations 7 Introduction 9 Traveling tools, traveling methods 14 The matter with numbers 17 Spaces of diabetes – the fieldsites 21 Sketching Uganda’s health care system 23 A roadmap to visibility – outline of the book 26 1. “If you are lacking insulin” – Diabetes Mellitus 29 Not just about sugar 30 The mysterious illness: one (hi)story of diabetes 34 A disease without (hi)story? 39 From urine to blood 41 Testing matters: diagnostic tests and diagnostic criteria 44 2. (Un)measured yet (un)seen 51 Number business 55 Data in transit? A status quo of NCDs in Uganda 61 (Un)measured but seen – diabetes in Uganda 66 3. Thinking beyond the evident 73 Technologies without borders? 73 The rise of evidence‐based medicine 77 Infrastructures or “Stuff, staff, space and systems” 84 Translation(s) in a technologized world 89 4. A ‘simple’ technology and its translations: the glucometer 97 Know it, get it started and “make your life easier” 101 Not for diagnosis? 108 Keeping the testing going 115 5. Diagnostic detours and a logic of chance 119 Diagnostic (un)certainties 124 Private Diagnostics 129 Survival of the richest 133 Pending diagnoses and “technological flowers” 137 Diagnosis as a logic of chance? 141 6. My numbers and my-Self 149 “Numbers don’t lie” 155 Knowing the good number 160 “Who shall I trust more, the number or myself?” 166 Numbers against uncertainty, numbers for a hopeful life 171 7. Seek and you shall find: Medical Outreaches 177 The crowd pullers 184 “An act of giving without receiving” 189 “The money is totally worth the experience” 196 Desired tests, undesired outcomes? 203 Concluding Remarks 209 Contesting the global health agenda 210 Trajectories of a fluid technology 211 Re‐visiting (in)visibility 214 References 217 Diabetes is regarded as one of the most challenging global health issues of the twenty-first century. Tracing the effects of a diagnostic device, the glucometer, this book examines how it contributes to the making of diabetes in contemporary Uganda. - Verlagsangaben