Preface  ix

Acknowledgments  xiii

1. The Other Cancer Ward  1

2. Neoplastic Africa: Mapping Circuits of Toxicity and Knowledge  29

3. Creating and Embedding Cancer in Botswana's Oncology Ward  52

Interlude. Amputation Day at Princess Marina Hospital  85

4. The Moral Intimacies of Care  93

5. Pain and Laughter  119

6. After ARVs, During Cancer, Before Death  152

Epilogue. Changing Wards, Further Improvisations  174

Notes  183

Bibliography  205

Index  221

Winner of a 2013 MacArthur "Genius" Grant

Winner of the 2013 Wellcome Medal for Anthropology as Applied to Medical Problems

“Improvising Medicine is best suited to those who are interested in global health or who provide medical care across cultures. While its primary subject is cancer, the points the author makes regarding the view of medical care priorities in resource-poor countries, as well as the culture-dependent experience of disease, are well taken and can be applied to work in other areas of the world.” —Holly Salzman, Family Medicine

Winner of a 2013 MacArthur "Genius" Grant

Winner of the 2013 Wellcome Medal for Anthropology as Applied to Medical Problems

“Improvising Medicine is best suited to those who are interested in global health or who provide medical care across cultures. While its primary subject is cancer, the points the author makes regarding the view of medical care priorities in resource-poor countries, as well as the culture-dependent experience of disease, are well taken and can be applied to work in other areas of the world.” —Holly Salzman, Family Medicine

"Improvising Medicine is as good as it gets. It is a book that will be read for decades to come. I have always thought that great ethnography transcends the specificities of time and place, of the particular, to offer a glimpse of the universal. This gripping book does just that, and the subtle and grounded way that it speaks to global health and debates in medical anthropology makes it a major addition to both fields."—Vinh-Kim Nguyen, M.D., author of The Republic of Therapy: Triage and Sovereignty in West Africa's Time of AIDS

“Improvising Medicine is a luminous book by a highly respected Africanist whose work creatively bridges anthropology and history. A product of intense listening and observation, deep care, and superb analytical work, it will become a canonical ethnography of medicine in the global south and will have a big impact across the social sciences and medical humanities.”—João Biehl, author of Will to Live: AIDS Therapies and the Politics of Survival and Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment

Permission to Photocopy (coursepacks)

If you are requesting permission to photocopy material for classroom use, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at copyright.com;

If the Copyright Clearance Center cannot grant permission, you may request permission from our Copyrights & Permissions Manager (use Contact Information listed below).

Permission to Reprint

If you are requesting permission to reprint DUP material (journal or book selection) in another book or in any other format, contact our Copyrights & Permissions Manager (use Contact Information listed below).

Images/Art

Many images/art used in material copyrighted by Duke University Press are controlled, not by the Press, but by the owner of the image. Please check the credit line adjacent to the illustration, as well as the front and back matter of the book for a list of credits. You must obtain permission directly from the owner of the image. Occasionally, Duke University Press controls the rights to maps or other drawings. Please direct permission requests for these images to permissions@dukeupress.edu.
For book covers to accompany reviews, please contact the publicity department.

Subsidiary Rights/Foreign Translations

If you're interested in a Duke University Press book for subsidiary rights/translations, please contact permissions@dukeupress.edu. Include the book title/author, rights sought, and estimated print run.

Disability Requests

Instructions for requesting an electronic text on behalf of a student with disabilities are available here.

Rights & Permissions Contact Information

Email: permissions@dukeupress.edu

Email contact for coursepacks: asstpermissions@dukeupress.edu

Fax: 919-688-4574

Mail:
Duke University Press
Rights and Permissions
905 W. Main Street
Suite 18B
Durham, NC 27701

For all requests please include:

1. Author's name. If book has an editor that is different from the article author, include editor's name also.

2. Title of the journal article or book chapter and title of journal or title of book

3. Page numbers (if excerpting, provide specifics)

For coursepacks, please also note: The number of copies requested, the school and professor requesting

For reprints and subsidiary rights, please also note: Your volume title, publication date, publisher, print run, page count, rights sought