Eine vergleichende Studie von COVID-19-Tests in der Demokratische Republik Kongo und Uganda: Eine Situierung von Wissen und Nichtwissen in der COVID-19-Pandemie
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
The aim of the project has been to provide a comparative study of diagnostic testing in the Covid-19 response in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Conga (DRC). In specific, the project explored Covid-19 testing as a technology of knowing. The research design used a grounded theory approach. Following this approach, we assume that what people know about the pandemic cannot be separated from a consideration of howthey know. Based an this approach, we will examine how COVID-19 testing in the two countries makes both knowing and unknowing-the latter comprising strategic ignorance, public secrets, speculation, and silent knowing-possible. This focus an knowing and unknowing offers an important analytical frame to study people's assessment of the severity of the pandemic in the two countries and the consequences of knowing and unknowing for people's health-seeking practices in the context of the pandemic. The research project will pursue the following specific research aims: 1. Exploring how diagnostic tests have been used to devise and implement the COVID-19 response in both countries. 2. Examining COVID-19 testing as a technology of knowing and capture the uncertainties in the COVID-19 pandemic made visible by testing. 3. Exploring how testing-and in particular the absence of testing-shapes both knowing and un- knowing in the context of the pandemic. 4. Specifying the forms of unknowing-ignorance, strategic ignorance, silent knowing-that influence people's assessments of the severity of the pandemic and the public health response to it. 5. Examining the consequences of unknowing on people's health-seeking practices in the COVID-19 pandemic. 6. Exploring what forms of knowing are crucial to respond to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics. Our methodological approach built an the tradition of grounded theory to study testing and situate knowing and unknowing in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the standard concept of grounded theory, we will include the elaborations proposed by situational analysis. In doing so, we will include nonhuman actors such as diagnostic technologies, scientific evidence, and other material things in the analysis of the discourses about the COVID-19. Moreover, we will be particularly attentive to the reflexive turn introduced by situational analysis; we therefore stress that, very much like with informants, what researchers know cannot be separated from how they know or unknow. This form of reflexivity will guide our analysis; it will also be used to curate our research blog, where researchers will share their experiences and insights.
