Paul Wenzel Geissler

Bilde av Paul Wenzel Geissler
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Telefon +47 22857579
Rom 831
Treffetider Onsdager, kl 10-12
Brukernavn
Besøksadresse Eilert Sunds Hus 8.etage
Postadresse Postboks 1091 Blindern 0317 Oslo

Wenzel Geissler er professor ved sosialantropologisk institutt. Forskningen hans dreier seg om naturvitenskap og medisin, miljø og landskap, historisk forandring og relasjonen mellom nåtid og fortid, materialitet og temporalitet, eller levninger og spor ('traces').

Faglige interesser

Tematisk: Vitenskap, medisin, medisinsk forskning, biologi, laboratorier, feltarbeid; sosial endring, politisk økonomi, kolonialisme, post-kolonialisme; minner, historie, temporalitet; landskap, arkitektur, materielle levninger.


Regionalt: Afrika, Kenya, Tanzania, Øst-Afrika.

Om

Wenzel Geissler har, i tillegg til en doktorgrad i sosialantropologi (Cambridge, 2003), bakgrunn i historie og zoologi, med mastergrad i historie (Hamburg, 1993) og doktorgrad i biologi (København, 1998). Hans hovedfokus regionalt er Øst-Afrika der han har gjennomført antropologisk feltarbeid siden 1994. Som antropolog flyttet Geissler i utgangspunktet sitt fokus fra naturvitenskapelige og medisinske spørsmål til 'klassiske' antropologiske temaer som slektskap og ritual, sosial endring, og historie og minner. Han har dog senere returnert til medisinske tematikker, og vitenskaps og teknologistudier ('STS'), og gjort etnografisk forskning på post-kolonial biovitenskap og kliniske forsøks sosiale liv i Afrika.

Geissler har lenge arbeidet i skjæringsfeltet mellom historie og antropologi og fokusert spesielt på relasjonen mellom materialitet og temporalitet - dvs. på spor eller levninger fra fortiden og hvordan mennesker lever med dem i den 'post-moderne' nåtiden. Dette arbeidet utforsker hvordan materielle ting, for eksempel landskap og arkitektur, tekniske gjenstander og arkiver, dyr og planter, avfall og kjemiske levninger - som utgjør den verden mennesket lever i, etablerer ikke bare minner og relasjoner til fortiden som de kommer fra (for eksempel også voldelige og progressive former for modernitet), men også danner grunnlag for nåtidig sosialt liv, og materialet til menneskenes ideer og planer for fremtiden. Denne forskning forankrer antropologi blant andre humaniora-fag og henter inspirasjon fra historie og arkeologi, 'STS' og 'mer-enn-menneskelig' antropologi.

En viktig utfordring for nåtidig humaniora-orientert antropologisk forskning er for Geissler selve utformingen av etnografien - som tekst og som andre, mer eksperimentelle former (så som visuell, litterær, utstilling, performance osv.) - hinsides samfunnsvitenskapelige former for representasjon, forståelse og kritikk. Geisslers nåværende medisinsk-antropologiske og miljøantropologiske samarbeids- og forskningsprosjekter i Øst-Afrika (Epidemic Traces, Covid-19, AnthroTox, AnthEM) bygger videre på dette teoretisk-metodologiske antropologiske arbeidet. 

Undervisning

Samarbeid

Geissler samarbeider hovedsakelig med partnere i Kenya - University of Nairobi, Maseno University og  Kenya Medical Research Institute - og i Tanzania - University of Dar es salaam og National Institute of Medical Research - og med et netværk af kollegaer i England, Frankrike og Nederland.

Emneord: Vitenskapsantropologi, medisinsk antropologi, sosial endring, politisk økonomi, historisk antropologi, arkæologi, spor, levninger, hukommelse, tid, Afrika, Kenya, Tanzania

Utvalgte publikasjoner

Bøker:

Pool R & Geissler PW. Medical Anthropology. 2005. London: Open University Press.

Becker F & Geissler PW (eds). Religion and AIDS in Africa. 2009. Leiden: Brill Publishers.

Geissler PW & Prince RJ. ‘The Land is Dying’ Creativity, Contingency and Conflict in western Kenya. 2010. Oxford: Berghahn (2010 RAI Amaury Talbot Prize).

Geissler PW & Molyneux C (eds.) Evidence, Ethos and Experiment: The Anthropology and History of Medical Research in Africa. 2011. Oxford: Berghahn.

Kelly AH & Geissler PW. (eds.) The Value of Transnational Medical Research: Labour, Participation and Care. 2012. Routledge: London.

Geissler PW, Rottenburg R, Zenker  J. (eds.) Rethinking Governance and Biomedicine in Africa. 2012. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.

Geissler PW (ed) Para-states and Medical Science: Making Global Health in Post-colonial Africa. 2014. Durham: Duke University Press.

Aellah G, Chantler T, Geissler PW.. Relational ethics and inequality: case studies from Africa for global health researchers. 2016. Wallingford: CABI Publishers.

Geissler PW, Kelly AH, Lachenal G, Manton J, Tousignant N. Traces of the Future: An Archaeology of Medical Science in Twenty First Century Africa. 2016. Bristol, Intellect.

Berre N, Geissler PW, Lagae J. (eds) African Modernism and Its Afterlives. 2022. Bristol, Intellect.

 

Udvalgte bokkapitler:

Geissler PW. Parasite lost - Remembering modern times with Kenyan government medical scientists. In: Evidence, Ethos and Experiment: the Anthropology and History of Medical Research in Africa. Geissler PW & Molyneux C (eds). 2010. pp. 297-232. Oxford: Berghahn.

Geissler PW. Studying Trial Communities: Anthropological and Historical Inquiries into Ethos, Politics and Economy of Medical Research in Africa. In: Evidence, Ethos and Experiment. Geissler PW & Molyneux C (eds). 2011. pp. 1-28. Oxford: Berghahn.

Geissler PW. The Archipelago of public health. Comments on the landscape of medical research in 21st century Africa. In: Regimes of Care Prince RJ & Marsland R (eds). (2013). Athens: Ohio UP, pp.231-56.

Geissler PW. What future remains: remembering a place of science in Africa. In: Para-States of Medical Science. Geissler PW (ed.). 2014. Durham: Duke UP.

Geissler PW. Science in the African Para-State. In: Para-States of Medical Science. Geissler PW (ed). 2015. Durham: Duke UP.

Geissler PW and Lachenal G. Introduction: Brief instructions for archaeologists of African futures. In: Traces of the future. An archaeology of medical science in Africa. Geissler PW, Lachenal G, Manton J and Tousignant N. 2016. Bristol, Intellect: 6-28.

 

Utvalgte artikler:

Geissler PW. “Worms are our life: Perceptions of worms among Luo people in Western Kenya. Anthropology & Medicine 1998, Part 1: 5(1):63-81; Part 2: 5(2):133-144.

Geissler PW, Prince RJ, Levene M, Mutemi W, Beckerleg S, Shulman C. Perceptions of soil eating and anaemia among pregnant Giriama women. Social Science and Medicine 1999, 48:1069-1079.

Geissler PW. The significance of earth-eating: social and cultural aspects of geophagy among Luo primary schoolchildren. Africa 2000, 70(4):653-682.

Geissler PW, Nokes K, Prince RJ, Aagaard-Hansen J, Ouma JH. Kenyan schoolchildren’s self-treatment of common illnesses. Social Science and Medicine 2000, 50(18):1771-1783.

Geissler PW, Prince RP, Meinert L, Nokes K, Ouma JH. Self–treatment practices among Kenyan and Ugandan children and the need for medicinal education in school health programs. Health Policy and Planning 2001, 16(4):361-72.

Geissler PW, Harris S, Prince RJ, Olsen A, Oketch H, Nielsen BS, Mølgård P. Medicinal plants used by Luo mothers in Bondo District, Kenya. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 2002, 83:39-54.

Geissler PW Blood-stealing rumours in rural western Kenya: a local critique of medical research in its wider context. MILA N.S. (Nairobi.) 2004, 5: 76-89.

Geissler PW & Prince RJ. Shared lives: Exploring practices of amity between grandmothers and grandchildren in western Kenya. Africa 2004, 74(1):95-120. 

Whyte SR, Alber E, Geissler PW. Lifetimes intertwined – grandparents and grandchildren in Africa. Introduction. Africa 2004, 74(1):1-5.

Geissler PW. ‘Kachinja are coming!’ Encounters around a medical research project in a Kenyan village. Africa, 2005, 75 (2), 173-202.

Geissler PW  & Pool R (2006). Popular concerns with medical research projects in Africa – a critical voice in debates about overseas research ethics. Tropical Medicine and International Health 11(7): 975-982.

Becker F & Geissler PW. Searching pathways in a landscape of death: religion and AIDS in East Africa. Journal of Religion in Africa, 2007, 37(1), 1-15.

Geissler PW & Prince RJ. Life Seen: Touch and Vision in the Making of Sex in Western Kenya. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2007, 1(1), 123 – 149.

Geissler PW, Kelly A, Imokhuede B & Pool R. ‘He is now like a brother, I can even give him my blood’ – relational ethics and material exchanges in a malaria vaccine ‘trial community’ in The Gambia. Social Science and Medicine 2007, 67(5) 696-707.

Molyneux S & Geissler  PW. Ethics and the ethnography of medical research in Africa. Social Science and Medicine 2007, 67(5), 685-695.

Geissler PW & Prince RJ. Active Compounds and Atoms of Society: Plants, Bodies, Minds and Cultures in the Work of Kenyan Ethnobotanical Knowledge. Social Studies of Science 2009, 39 (4): 599-634.

Geissler PW. ‘Transport  - to where?’ – Reflections on the problem of value and time a propos an awkward practice in medical research. Journal of Cultural Economy 2010, 4(1):45 -64.

Kelly AK & Geissler PW. The Value of Transnational Medical Research. Introduction. Journal of Cultural Economy 2010, 4(1):3-10.

Malowany M, Geissler PW, Lwoba A. “Go Back to the Land!” Negotiating Space, Framing Governmentality in Lambwe Valley, Kenya 1954–75. Canadian Journal of African Studies 45, no. 3 (2011): 440-79.

Geissler PW. Public secrets in public health: knowing not to know while making scientific knowledge. American Ethnologist, 2013, 40(1), 13-34.

Chantler, T., Otewa, F., Onyango, P., Okoth, B., Odhiambo, F., Parker, M., Geissler, P.W. (2013) Challenges that arise at the community interface of health research: Village Reporters’ Experiences in Western Kenya. Developing World Bioethics 13(1), 2013, 13(1): 30-37.

Madiega PA, Jones G, Prince RJ, Geissler PW. ‘She’s my sister-in-law, my visitor, my friend’ -- experiences of home follow-up in clinical HIV research in Western Kenya. Developing World Bioethics 2013, 13(1): 21-29.

Molyneux, S. & Geissler, P.W.  Guest editorial: Making ethics in the field. Developing World Bioethics 13(1), 2013, 13(1): ii-iv.

Geissler PW. Stuck in ruins, or up and coming? The shifting geography of urban health work in Kisumu, Kenya. Africa 2013, 83(4), 539-560.

Geissler PW & Tousignant N. Introduction: Sustaining the life of the African Polis. Africa 2013, 83(4), 531-538.

Geissler, P.W. & Okwaro, F. Developing world: Discuss inequality. Nature 513, 18 September 2014: 303.

Okwaro F & Geissler PW. In/dependent collaborations: Perceptions and experiences of African scientists in transnational HIV research. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 2015, 29(4): 492–511. .

Geissler, P. W. and A. Kelly. Field Station as Stage: Re-enacting Mid-20th Century Scientific Work and Life in Amani, Tanzania. Social Studies of Science 2016, 46(6): 912-937.

Geissler PW & Kelly AH. A home for science: research stations and field sites in the Arctic and the tropics (Introduction to special issue). Social Studies of Science 2016, 46(6): 797-808.

Jones G & Geissler PW. Seeking exposure: conversions of scientific knowledge in an African city. Journal of Modern African Studies 2016, 54(3): 389-417.

Ghyselen A, Geissler PW, Lagae J, Mangesho P. Scenes of Amani, Tanzania: Biography of a postcolonial landscape. Journal of Landscape Architecture 201612(1): 6-17.

Geissler PW and Tausignant N. Capacity as history and horizon: Infrastructure, autonomy and future in African health science and care. Canadian Journal of African Studies 2016, 50(3): 349-61.

Geissler PW and Tousignant N. Beyond realism: Africa's medical dreams Introduction. Africa 2020, 90(1): 1-17.

Geissler PW, Gerrets R, et al. Africanization: two conversations among elderly science workers about the perpetually promissory. Africa 2020, 90(1): 18-34.

Geissler PW. Remembering Africanization: excerpt of reunion transcripts. Africa 2020, 90(1): 35-50.

Geissler PW and Prince R. Layers of epidemy: Present pasts during the first weeks of COVID-19 in western Kenya. Centaurus 2020, 62(2): 248-256.

Geissler PW A failing anthropology of colonial failure: following a driver's uniform found at Amani research station, Tanzania. J R Anthropol Inst 2023, 29 (S1): 167-189.

Geissler PW Anthropology of Modern Traces. Oxford Encyclopedia of Anthropology 2023. Online: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.197

Film:

Prince RJ & Geissler PW. 2002. Adhiambo - Born in the Evening. Two Months in the Life of a Kenyan Mother and her Newborn Daughter. (DV, 68 min). Copenhagen, Hamburg, Cambridge: Filmwerkstatt Dokumentarisch Arbeiten (Distr. Royal Anthropological Institute)(RAI Film Student Prize 2003).

Publisert 20. sep. 2010 11:06 - Sist endret 9. nov. 2023 13:17

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