After the end: Lived experiences and aftermaths of diseases, disasters and drugs in global health
Who decides when something has ended?
- How do different ideas of the end re-produce existing structural inequalities?
- What would a focus on after the end of events mean for the way we think about time?
We are a unique group of academics from different backgrounds, collaborating to explore shared experiences that are often hard to narrate because clear endings are unavailable.
Our work examines the types of real-world issues that many people grapple with daily. Experiences of “after the end” have informed our investigations of ongoing experiences of epidemics and environmental disasters after official declarations of endings; living in environments where medicines are no longer available or accessible; trauma recovery; the impact of legal endings; and waiting for ends that never arrive. Discussing what happens “after the end” will provide new, relevant and engaging insights on this crucial and timely issue.
We seek to have a major impact on the care, attention and time given to the most marginalised by focusing on the people, places, processes and policies that accompany crises and how time and endings are felt during and after.
Themes
The difficulty in discerning a definitive end is not particular to one disease outbreak or environmental disaster, location or community. Rather the lack of a clear end reveals the problematic and differing facets, versions, meanings and power dynamics attached to endings. We seek to explore themes related to time such as the role of memory, time as an instrument of power, and different experiences and concepts of time.
Focus areas
We consider multiple ideas of endings as drawing attention to counter-narratives and lived experiences of continuations, endurance and survival in contexts where disasters, infectious disease outbreaks and environmental events still shape the existence of many even after they have been declared officially over.
This multi-method project is organised around four theoretically informed interconnected areas of research exploring the end and endings, after the end, future times, and connecting times.
Project collaborators
- Professor Patricia Kingori, Oxford Population Health, United Kingdom
- Professor Laura Salisbury, University of Exeter, United Kingdom
- Dr Haja Wurie, University of Sierra Leone, Sierra Leone
- Professor Emily Chan, Chinese University of Hong Kong
- Professor Dora Vargha, University of Exeter, United Kingdom
- Professor Sharifah Sekalala, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
- Professor Debora Diniz, Anis Instituto de Bioética, Brazil
- Dr Ruth Ogden, Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom
This project is funded by a Wellcome Discovery Award [225238/Z/22/Z].
selected Project Outputs
Thana C de Campos-Rudinsky, Sarah L Bosha, Daniel Wainstock, Sharifah Sekalala, Sridhar Venkatapuram, Caesar Alimsinya Atuire.
The Lancet Global Health. 2024. ISSN 2214-109X. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(24)00186-4
Navigating time equity: Balancing urgency and inclusivity in pandemic treaty negotiations
Sekalala S, Lake S, Hodges S, Perera Y (2024) PLOS Glob Public Health 4(4): e0003118. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0003118
After the end? Exploring the BFI National Archive in the wake of Covid-19
Blog post by Dr Kelechi Anucha. In the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, we have been working tne BFI (British Film Institute) collection of film and television to investigate how public health emergencies of the past have been represented on screen.
Visit the After the End website for a full list of outputs and current activities.
