"Playing the Numbers Game": Evidence-based Advocacy and the Technocratic Narrowing of the Safe Motherhood Initiative

Katerini T. Storeng, Dominique P. Béhague

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

121 Citations (Scopus)
110 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Based on an ethnography of the international Safe Motherhood Initiative (SMI), this article charts the rise of evidence-based advocacy (EBA), a term global-level maternal health advocates have used to indicate the use of scientific evidence to bolster the SMI's authority in the global health arena. EBA represents a shift in the SMI's priorities and tactics over the past two decades, from a call to promote poor women's health on the grounds of feminism and social justice (entailing broad-scale action) to the enumeration of much more narrowly defined practices to avert maternal deaths whose outcomes and cost effectiveness can be measured and evaluated. Though linked to the growth of an audit- and business-oriented ethos, we draw from anthropological theory of global forms to argue that EBAor playing the numbers gameprofoundly affects nearly every facet of evidence production, bringing about ambivalent reactions and a contested technocratic narrowing of the SMI's policy agenda.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)260-279
Number of pages20
JournalMedical Anthropology Quarterly
Volume28
Issue number2
Early online date6 Mar 2014
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2014

Keywords

  • global health
  • evidence-based policy
  • audit culture
  • advocacy coalitions
  • maternal health
  • GLOBAL HEALTH
  • MATERNAL MORTALITY
  • PUBLIC-HEALTH
  • ANTHROPOLOGY
  • POLICY
  • PERSPECTIVE
  • DIVERSITY
  • HISTORY
  • SCIENCE

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