The Global Health Politics Podcast
Hosted by Joseph Harris, the Global Health Politics Podcast features intimate, one-of-a-kind conversations with leading scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and activists working on critical issues in global health. The podcast enjoys support from Boston University's Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Episodes
Season 3, Episode 5: Monica Wang on the Collective Cure
Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the podcast, Joseph Harris sits down with Dr. Monica Wang, an award-winning researcher whose work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and National Geographic. Dr. Wang currently serves as Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences at Boston University School of Public Health. Her new book - The Col
Season 3, Episode 4: Brent Kaup and Kelly Austin on The Pathogens of Finance
Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the podcast, Joseph Harris sits down with William and Mary Professor Brent Kaup and Lehigh Professor Kelly Austin to discuss their new book, The Pathogens of Finance: How Capitalism Breeds Vector-Borne Disease. Their exciting and insightful new book takes readers to the exurban homes of northern Virginia; the burgeoning agricultural outposts of Mato Grosso, Brazi
Season 3, Episode 3: Mardia Stone on Liberia's Ebola Response
Send us Fan MailAt a moment when the world is grappling with an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that is spiraling out of control, Joseph Harris sits down with Dr. Mardia Stone. Dr. Stone served as Ebola Response Team Coordinator at the WHO and Senior Advisor to the Incident Manager of Liberia's national Ebola response. She is author of Collapse and Resiliency: The Insid
Season 3, Episode 2: Susan Erikson on Investable! When Pandemic Risk Meets Speculative Finance, A Cautionary Tale
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, Joseph Harris sits down with anthropologist Susan Erikson. They talk about her extraordinary new book, Investable: When Pandemic Risk Meets Speculative Finance, A Cautionary Tale. The book examines the World Bank's novel efforts - under former World Bank President Jim Yong Kim - to mobilize private finance to support pandemic response in the world's poore
Season 3, Episode 1: Sapna Desai on Women's Health and Unnecessary Hysterectomy
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, Joseph Harris sits down to talk with Dr. Sapna Desai, a Senior Fellow at the Population Council Institute in New Delhi, India. A public health expert with over 20 years of experience working on women's health in India, she holds a PhD in epidemiology and population from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a Master's in Population and In
Season 2, Episode 12: Lioba Hirsch on Antiblackness and Global Health
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, Joseph Harris sits down with Dr. Lioba Hirsch, a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. They talk about her new book, Antiblackness and Global Health: A Response to Ebola in the Colonial Wake, as well as racism, decolonization, North-South power dynamics, global health governance, inequalities in relation to COVID-19, and infectious disease
Season 2, Episode 11: Katharina Krause and Brooke Bocast on The Many Ways of Doing Research on Global Health Politics
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, I sit down with two researchers doing very exciting - but also very different - kinds of research on global health politics. In the first conversation, I talk with Dr. Katharina Krause, an international relations scholar who is a Research Associate at the University of Tubingen about her book project on the relationship between health security and images of infecti
Season 2, Episode 10: District of Columbia Shadow Representative to Congress Oye Owolewa on Political Advocacy in a Time of Occupation
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, Joseph Harris sits down with Adeoye "Oye" Owolewa. A pharmacist recognized for his efforts to protect public health, Dr. Owolewa has served as the Shadow Representative to Congress for the nation's capital since his election in November 2020. He shares his experience as a Nigerian American working in politics, advocating for D.C. statehood at a time
Season 2, Episode 9: New York Times Best- Selling Author John Green on Global Health Injustice and Tuberculosis
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, Joseph Harris sits down with New York Times best-selling author John Green to talk about his new book, Everything is Tuberculosis. Best known for novels, like Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns, which have been turned into Hollywood movies, in his latest book Mr. Green turns his attention to a disease for which we have a cure, but which still kills over a million p
Season 2, Episode 8: Madhu Pai on Global Health Inequality
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, Joseph Harris sits down with one of the most prominent voices in global health today, Dr. Madhu Pai. Dr. Pai is a medical doctor and Canada Research Chair in Epidemiology & Global Health at McGill University and the Associate Director of the McGill International TB Centre in Montreal. In this wide-ranging conversation, they talk about tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, th
Season 2, Episode 7: Thurka Sangaramoorthy on Immigration and Health
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, Joseph Harris sits down with American University anthropologist Thurka Sangaramoorthy to discuss her work on immigration and health. They talk about her work with Haitian immigrants in South Florida that was the subject of her first book; her work at the CDC and book on rapid ethnographic assessments; her new book - Landscapes of Care: Immigration and Health in Rur
Season 2, Episode 6: James Pfeiffer on Debt, Austerity, and Decolonization
Send us Fan MailIn this long-awaited episode, originally recorded in Fall 2022, Joseph Harris sits down with Dr. James Pfeiffer, Professor of Global Health and Anthropology at University of Washington. They talk about global health work in Mozambique; World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programs; debt and austerity and their impact on development; and the movement to decolonize global health.
Season 2, Episode 5: Claire Decoteau on the COVID-19 Emergency and the Failure of Pandemic Response
Send us Fan MailIn this podcast episode, Joseph Harris sits down with University of Illinois-Chicago Professor of Sociology Claire Decoteau. They discuss her latest book - Emergency: COVID-19 and the Uneven Valuation of Life - which explores how and why the city of Chicago failed to protect its most vulnerable citizens in its pandemic response. In the process, they explore the changing landscape o
Season 2, Episode 4: The Community Health Impact Coalition's Campaign to Professionalize Community Health Work Globally
Send us Fan MailMany health systems around the world rely on community health workers (CHWs) who play vital roles in health promotion, disease prevention, and primary care. While CHWs in some countries are not paid or receive only small stipends and operate without a great deal of support, guidance, or professional standards, one global movement is trying to change that. In this episode, Joseph Ha
Season 2, Episode 3: Jenny Trinitapoli on HIV/AIDS and Epidemics of Uncertainty
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, Joseph Harris sits down with University of Chicago sociologist Jenny Trinitapoli. They discuss her new book, An Epidemic of Uncertainty, which explores how young adults negotiate relationships, sex, and childbearing in the context of the AIDS epidemic in Malawi, one of the world's hardest hit nations. Her landmark book draws attention not only to the uncertain
Season 2, Episode 2: Victor Roy Explains How Finance Controls the Price and Value of Medicine
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, Joseph Harris sits down with University of Pennsylvania physician and sociologist Victor Roy. They discuss the issues that are at the core of Dr. Roy's new book, Capitalizing a Cure: How Finance Controls the Price and Value of Medicines, which is available for free online through open access. The discussion covers the financialization of healthcare and medicin
Season 2, Episode 1: Julia Lynch on Political Science and the Political Economy of Health
Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the Global Health Politics Podcast, Joseph Harris sits down with University of Pennsylvania political scientist Julia Lynch to discuss her work on politics, pandemics, public health, inequality, and social policy. Our wide-ranging conversation explores the role of political science in understanding the political economy of health and two of her recent books - Reg
Episode 12: The Dismantling of U.S. Foreign Aid and the Consequences for Global Health
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, Joseph Harris explores the actions taken by the Trump administration to dismantle U.S. foreign aid and the consequences that these actions will have for global health. He sits down with Dr. Beth Cameron, a former Senior Adviser to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); Nidhi Bouri, former Deputy Assistant Administrator at USAID; Dr. Brooke Nichols,
Episode 11: Prerna Singh on the Comparative Politics of Vaccination in China and India
Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the Global Health Politics Podcast, I sit down with Brown University political scientist Prerna Singh to discuss her latest book project, Moral Vaccination: How Ideas and Institutions Controlled Contagion in China and India. Our wide-ranging conversation explores how states generate compliance with public health interventions, grounded in a comparison of India an
Episode 10: Emily Mendenhall on COVID-19, Syndemics, and Community
Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the Global Health Politics Podcast, I sit down with Georgetown University anthropologist Emily Mendenhall to discuss her book, Unmasked: COVID, Community, and the Case of Okoboji. We talk about her past work on non-communicable diseases, particularly diabetes and mental health, and her concept of syndemics, which examines how multiple health and social conditions
Episode 9: Ann Swidler on HIV/AIDS Altruism in Malawi
Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the Global Health Politics Podcast, I sit down with UC-Berkeley Sociologist Ann Swidler to learn from her more than two decades of experience studying the aid industry, global health, culture, and institutions in Malawi amid the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Episode 8: Kim Yi Dionne on Pandemic Response in Africa
Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the Global Health Politics Podcast, I sit down with UC-Riverside Political Scientist Kim Yi Dionne to talk about pandemic response in Africa, the discipline of political science, and her engagement with Malawi.
Episode 7: Adia Benton on Military Power and Public Health
Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the Global Health Politics Podcast, Joseph Harris sits down with Northwestern University anthropologist Adia Benton. They talk about her book, HIV Exceptionalism, her recent work on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the militarization of public health, and efforts to decolonize global health.
Episode 6: Tim Schwab on the Bill Gates Problem
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, I sit down with Tim Schwab, a freelance investigative journalist, whose new book, The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of a Good Billionaire, critically examines the profound influence of one of global health's biggest players, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Episode 5: Alexandre White on Epidemic Orientalism
Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the Global Health Politics Podcast, I sit down with Alexandre (Sasha) White, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, who is jointly affiliated with the School of Medicine and Department of the History of Medicine. We discuss his new book, Epidemic Orientalism: Race, Capital, and the Governance of Infectious Disease, and broader thoughts a
Episode 4: Themrise Khan on White Saviorism in International Development
Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the Global Health Politics Podcast, Joseph Harris sits down with Themrise Khan, a Pakistan-based development professional. They talk about Khan and her colleague's Kanakulya Dickson and Maike Sondarjee's groundbreaking new edited volume, White Saviorism in International Development: Theories, Practices, and Lived Experiences, and its impact on the field
Episode 3: Eduardo J. Gómez on Junk Food Politics
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, we have a conversation with Dr. Eduardo Gómez, Professor in the Department of Community and Population Health and Director of the Institute of Health Policy and Politics at Lehigh University. A political scientist by training, Professor Gómez' research focuses on the politics of global health policy, with a focus on emerging middle-income countries. He is the
Episode 2: Adeola Oni-Orisan on Maternal Death Narratives
Send us Fan MailIn this episode, I sit down with Dr. Adeola Oni-Orisan. who is an Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine at UC-Davis. Dr. Oni-Orisan holds an MD from Harvard Medical School and a PhD in Medical Anthropology from UCSF and is an expert in community-centered research, qualitative research, critical race theory, Black feminist studies, and science and technology studies.
Episode 1: Jallicia Jolly on Transnational Reproductive Justice Organizing
Send us Fan MailThis week's podcast features a conversation with Dr. Jallicia Jolly. Dr. Jolly is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Black Studies at Amherst College, and a poet, public scholar, equity practitioner, and reproductive justice organizer. In the podcast, she discusses what led her to focus on the subject of HIV organizing and grassroots women's reproductive healt
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