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Latest posts
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When Causality Swirls: Toxic Uncertainty in Industrial Aliağa
The smell arrived in the middle of our interview. I was sitting in the trade union’s local center in Aliağa, on İzmir’s northern edge, three days into a preliminary study of industrial pollution and health. İbrahim is a retired petrochemical operator, a two-term union branch…
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In the Journals October 2026
Somatosphere welcomes you to the October edition of “In the Journals.” Scroll through our monthly round up of new research across anthropology, STS and social science journals. BioSocieties Modeling the ‘patient cell:’ performances of proximity and the making of pathological…
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The Frontline Middlemen: How Pharmaceutical technicians navigate ‘fake’ biomedicine anxieties in Morogoro, Tanzania
Mwanga is a 27 year-old pharmaceutical technician and was one of my closest associates during my 11-month stay in Morogoro Town, Tanzania, for fieldwork. After Mwanga graduated from St Francis University College of Health and Allied Sciences, with an Ordinary Diploma in…
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In the Journals September 2026
Somatosphere welcomes you to the September edition of “In the Journals.” Scroll through our monthly round up of new research across anthropology, STS and social science journals. Technology and Culture The Problem with the Sex Toy Narrative: Design and Medical Intent in Early…
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Online and offline middlemen: contrasting ways of creating trust in the pharmaceutical markets of north India
In many parts of the world, there is an increasing discomfort with middlemen in the healthcare industry (Pearl, 2024). They are characterized as greedy, profit seekers and vilified characters that put money before health and proliferate the markets with fake medicines, putting…
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Middlemen and Fakes: Brokering Pharmaceutical Nationalism in Iran
In one of the oldest streets in Tehran’s city centre, an informal pharmaceutical marketplace unfolds amidst a crowded street, where ‘dalals’[1] (brokers) stand on the pavements, hands brimming with packages of pharmaceuticals, whispering various medication names to pedestrians.…
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In the Journals August 2026
Somatosphere welcomes you to the August edition of “In the Journals.” Scroll through our monthly round up of new research across anthropology, STS and social science journals. Sociology of Health and Illness More Than a Role Dispute: Physician Associates and the Changing Grounds…
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Become a nurse in Germany!
“Most of these other agency heads are, in my opinion, car salesmen. They would sell anything and would probably also somehow sell their grandmother’s washing machine, probably also their grandmother if they could get money for it.” This is how one CEO of a German nurse…
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The taskforce as middleman: The rise and fall of IMPACT
This is the story of how the World Health Organisation (WHO) came to partner with Interpol and the pharmaceutical industry to fight a war against fake drugs. This partnership took the form of a taskforce, the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeit Taskforce (IMPACT),…
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The “Suitcase Trader”: The Middlemen in the Cosmetics Market of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Introduction I’m walking through Mwenge, one of Dar es Salaam’s central business districts. I’ve been spending time here with Hassan, a petty cosmetics trader, who carries his goods in a suitcase as he makes his daily tour of the market. We’ve been walking a while and Hassan…