Into the Wild: GM Mosquitoes on Trial

Ann Kelly is a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow with the Anthropologies of African Biosciences Group at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from Cambridge University. Her research focuses on international public health research and interventions. Her ethnographic work in Tanzania and The Gambia explores the production and use of scientific facts in Africa, with special attention to the built environments, material artifacts and practical labors of experimentation. She is currently developing a project exploring the material memories of biomedical research in African cities.

Ann Kelly and Uli Beisel will examine the ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) of releasing genetically modified mosquitoes to control malaria. With our combined expertise in the fields of human geography and anthropology we aim to develop a theoretical framework to deepen the focus of policy debate from the problems of public engagement and environmental risk to the socio-political practices of knowledge production and the epistemological assumptions underpinning global health care policy. During our time at Fondation Brocher we will situate the novel strategies of genetic control within broader philanthropic, policy and research contexts.