Wenzel Geissler MSc PhD MPhil PhD

Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology

Before training as a social anthropologist at the Universities of Copenhagen and Cambridge, I studied zoology at the University of Copenhagen. Fieldwork for both degrees was conducted in Kenya, and Africa is the continent I am most familiar with. Since converting to social anthropology, my research interests have gradually broadened from an interest in infectious diseases, school health and medicine use, to focus on questions of kinship/relatedness and generation, as well as of social change and memory. Since 1994 I am engaged in long-term fieldwork in western Kenya, an area suffering from the severe impact of the AIDS epidemic. More recently, my research is about the ethnography of medical research in different African study sites, trying to bring together Africanist anthropology, anthropological interest in science, and questions of medical research ethics.

Please see our website and register for regular updates on the anthropology of biosciences in Africa: aab.lshtm.ac.uk

Affiliation

Teaching

During this academic year I teach on the unit 'Medical Anthropology in Public Health'.

Research

I am a member of the research group on the Anthropology and History of African Biosciences (see aab.lshtm.ac.uk). At present, I am involved in different ethnographic studies of medical research in Africa (Kenya, The Gambia, Zambia, Tanzania), in historical-anthropological work on disease control in Africa, and in community-based research on the social consequences of AIDS.

Research areas

  • Clinical trials
  • Medicines
  • Public health history
  • Research : policy relationship

Disciplines

  • Anthropology

Disease and Health Conditions

  • Infectious disease

Other interests

  • Ethnography Of Research
  • Kinship
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