Tacking between disciplines: Approaches to tuberculosis in New Zealand, the Cook Islands, and Tuvalu

Abstract

Earlier chapters in this volume have demonstrated that studies of health and disease which confine themselves to anthropology on the one hand or epidemiology on the other offer incomplete understandings of the complex phenomena involved. Yet these disciplines have differing logics. It cannot be assumed that the truths they offer are commensurable and compatible, so a simple ‘add and stir’ approach is seldom satisfactory. In our studies of the political ecology of tuberculosis in New Zealand and two contrasting island Pacific nations, along with the transnational spaces between, we have prioritised anthropological approaches, which are not reducible to 'culture' only. We have tacked between history, anthropology and epidemiological research on tuberculosis and those intertwined health and social conditions which interact with TB to produce worse outcomes. In this chapter we examine historical and contemporary cases which show how ‘tacking between’ disciplines reveals insights contrary to popular understandings.