‘ETHNOGRAPHY PLUS’ IN TUBERCULOSIS RESEARCH

Abstract

We argue that in some contexts we anthropologists need to go beyond ethnography through being involved in multidisciplinary approaches to research problems and through engaging in a more public anthropology in our ethnographic and other writing. This argument is based on our experiences in coming to an understanding of ‘immigrant TB’ in the context of a social sciences research project about tuberculosis in New Zealand. This paper unpacks some of the complexities around relatively high rates of tuberculosis in overseasborn persons in New Zealand, and suggests that the conditions of settlement, including poverty and discrimination, combine with life history to produce the observed epidemiological patterns. A corollary is that while control of tuberculosis at the border is important, support for migrants, ensuring their social participation, access to health care and their rights to freedom from discrimination are also key.