Quarantine and Its Malcontents
How Liberians Responded to the Ebola Epidemic Containment Measures
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Abstract
This article examines how populations affected by the Ebola epidemic in Liberia reacted to the implementation of mandatory, state-imposed quarantine as a way of curtailing transmission. The ethnography, based on in-depth fieldwork in both urban and rural areas, shows how mandatory quarantine caused severe social consequences for both people’s perceptions of epidemic control and their health-seeking behaviours. The authoritarian imposition of this public-health measure soon became a driver of social fear that contributed to the divide between institutions and population, jeopardising the control of transmission. Its implementation overshadowed more acceptable local quarantine measures that communities were organising to protect themselves from transmission. The analysis argues that quarantine in Liberia was counterproductive and suggests alternatives to epidemic control rooted in social acceptance and local practices.
Contributor Notes
Umberto Pellecchia has worked as an anthropologist for Médecins Sans Frontières since 2012. He received his PhD in Anthropology of African Societies at the University of Siena, Italy. His main interests are the interplays between global inequalities and health in the field of African societies and migration. He has carried out fieldwork in Ghana, Italy, South Sudan, Egypt, Liberia and Malawi.
E-mail: u.pellecchia@gmail.com