A comparative study of COVID-19 tests in the DRC and Uganda: Situating the knowns and unknowns in the COVID19 pandemic (2021-22)

Covid 19 testing at Bobbi Hospital, Uganda. A person works at a table on which laboratory utensils are lying. The person is wearing gloves, a mask and a lab coat. Another person is sitting on a chair next to the table.
Covid 19 testing at Bobbi Hospital, Uganda.   ©Sung-Joon Park

Our research project aims to provide a comparative study of diagnostic testing in the Covid-19 response in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). We will share our stories from the field.

Our project explores Covid-19 testing as a technology of knowing. We employ a grounded theory approach. Following this approach, we assume that what people know about the pandemic cannot be separated from a consideration of howthey know. This essentially means what we researchers know, very much like in the case of our informants, cannot be separated from how we know or unknow.

The aim of the field stories and our website is to reflect on the ways our knowledge practices are entangled. These reflections are also a conversation betweem the teams in DRC and in Uganda in times of digitization.

We are two teams in Uganda and the DRC, speaking English and French, next to various other languages. We do many things to speak to each other like zooming, chatting in WhatsApp groups, and writing lots of emails. We want to use these technologies of communication not only for the coordination of our work. The field stories and the website will help us to share and shape the ideas formed during field work at four different sites and in two countries.

This project is funded by the German Research Foundation.

See also https://covid-19-testing-research.org

 

 

Research Group Medical Anthropology

Portrait of a male person of color with glasses and dark hair pulled back, wearing a blue shirt.
AG Medical Anthropology

Dr. Sung-Joon (Song) Park

Telefon: +49 40 285380-711

E-Mail: sung.park@bnitm.de

  • The logo shows the letters D, F and G on a white background, next to the lettering "Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft".
  • Large and small black dots Volkswagen Stiftung