VIRTUAL: Africa in the Time of Coronavirus - Malawi: Colloquialism, Myths and Popular Responses

Please join the virtual event here

This conversation is the third of a series of dialogues with UK-based academics and experts from across Africa who will be exploring the way in which the virus is affecting life on the continent.

Dr Chisomo Kalinga is a Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Fellow at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh. Her current research project is titled ‘Ulimbaso ‘You will be strong again’: How literary aesthetics and storytelling inform concepts of health and wellbeing in Malawi’. The objective of this study is to determine how literature--which holds a unique reverence in the day-to-day lives of African citizens--can be used to improve delivery of health care services through a better understanding of the interplay between African indigenous literature and structures of thought surrounding health. Dr Kalinga’s fieldwork investigates contemporary performance and storytelling from poets, actors, writers and ordinary citizens within communities to examine the ways modern and traditional African literature and storytelling forms are used to inform and help communities to negotiate matters pertaining to illness, treatment, health and wellbeing.

Dr Kalinga obtained her PhD in English Research at King’s College London in 2014 and is currently collaborating with her colleagues at the University of Malawi and the Malawi University of Science and Technology to launch the Malawi Medical Humanities Network (MMHN), an interdisciplinary network for Malawiana researchers around the world to share events, programmes, projects and exhibitions that explore the link between health and the humanities.

All welcome. Please note that this event might be recorded and that admission is on a first come, first served basis. Please follow this FAQ link for more information. All our events are free but you can support the IAS here.