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Abstract
As Response and Resilience Team Anthropologist for Oxfam GB, my role was to support an inclusive, community-led Ebola response through a better understanding of gender dynamics in the context of the outbreak. This case study identified stigma and blame of affected people as key factors in the ongoing epidemic. Despite social mobilisation efforts to address these attitudes, they remained ingrained in the Ebola response at multiple levels: in Government of Sierra Leone quarantine policies, in community by-laws and in everyday social interactions. Negative attitudes put pressure on the roles of men and women in ways that produced barriers to acting on Ebola prevention and treatment advice or creating an inclusive Ebola response. Our findings prompted several improvements in Ebola response activities that Oxfam Sierra Leone carried forward in their work, demonstrating the key role applied anthropology can play in creating a reflexive process to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian aid.
Contributor Notes
Olive Minor is a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow and a Research & Evaluation Officer with the International Rescue Committee. In 2014, Olive joined Oxfam as Resilience and Response Team Anthropologist. She worked with Oxfam to identify sociocultural factors prolonging the Ebola epidemic in Liberia and Sierra Leone and to improve refugee health outcomes in Tanzania. Her previous work includes identifying barriers to HIV prevention and treatment for LGBTI Ugandans, and applying anthropology to design health programmes for pregnant teens in Cameroon. She holds a PhD in Anthropology and a Masters in Public Health from Northwestern University. E-mail: olive.m.minor@gmail.com