In the Time of Ebola: Youth, Family, and Emergency in Sierra Leone

Anthropologist Jonah Lipton was in Freetown, Sierra Leone, when the largest Ebola outbreak in history hit. In the Time of Ebola is his account of the epidemic, centering on the residents of a neighborhood swept up in the emergency.

Lipton recounts follows the stories lives of young men and women over a period of seven years, revealing what the epidemic looked like on the ground. He explores its causes, meaningsimpacts, and legacies in a place where crisis might be considered the norm not rather than the exception. The emergency was disruptive and challenging, in partnot least due to the short-term international response. Yet for many youths Ebolathe outbreak was a time of unusual clarity on the ambiguities around care, work, and coming of age experienced in a context of vast economic and social inequalities. Lipton shows how Freetown residents residents of this historically cosmopolitan West African city drew on centuries old frameworks for managing foreign intervention. crisis management. In the Time of Ebola questions dominant framings of crisis, and offers pointsways of theorizing, researching, and intervening inresponding to emergencies that mtake the home, family, and ＂ordinary life＂ as their starting point.

Jonah Lipton is an anthropologist specializing in the study of youth, family life, emergencies, and global health. He has taught and researched at the London School of Economics in the Department of Anthropology and the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa. and His writing has appeared in The Guardian.