THE CORNERSTONE OF A CONSPIRACY: THE ROLE OF HUMAN-WILDLIFE PERCEPTIONS IN THE MASS DISBELIEF IN THE EBOLA VIRUS, NORTHERN SIERRA LEONE

I have now seen the country come through two large-scale disease outbreaks, and have been in Sierra Leone at the outset of both. However, the scope of this thesis goes beyond the few years of my experiences there, and presents the country in the context of it’s years as a hub for both the export of human beings and wildlife. Through four trips to Sierra Leone between 2017 and 2020 lasting between 5 weeks and four months, dives into private libraries and historical sources in multiple countries, and analysis of the digital media output around the Ebola epidemic I explore how the role of centuries of external forces in Sierra Leone, as well as the international attitudes of disgust towards Sierra Leonean culture, shaped the response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak. I began this thesis hoping to understand if the Ebola outbreak had shaped rural Sierra Leoneans reliance on ‘bushmeat’ after hearing how the closing of trade routes had led to reported widespread food insecurity in the country, but my questions quickly began to revolve around the all encompassing idea in Sierra Leone that the Ebola outbreak was fabricated. In this thesis I explore how sensitisation was both presented to and interpreted by people from a variety of backgrounds. This led me deep into the ethnographically rich world of conspiracy theories, which I attempted to trace back to large-scale missteps and colonial threads that still deeply affect the country today. My ethnographic data collection included 21 focus group interviews, and in-depth individual interviews with 17 people from both rural and urban environments. I also used tools like camera traps and photo flashcards of animals to not only learn more about the wildlife in the north of Sierra Leone, but also to build relationships with community people, and start conversations about specific species. Through all of this work I was able to see how the validity of the Ebola outbreak was more readily accepted the less official sensitisation a person had been exposed to. I was also able to see repeated examples of how people in urban environments, no matter how far disconnected from the lifestyles, valued the experiences of rural subsistence farms in the country. This was important in seeing how the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ narrative around this epidemic that was developed largely by the international media, was integrated and shaped the responses of, not only all, Sierra Leoneans to the narrative and corresponding sensitisation, but in the way that the government and international aid organisations responded to the epidemic. I argue that an integration of pre-existing cultural beliefs and a recognition of the specific lived experiences of peoples must inform disease communication for it to be effective, because the alternatives are that the sensitisation is at best, not believed, and at worse fuels conspiracy theories and actively creates distrust and disbelief.

Grantor dc:publisher

Oxford Brookes University

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Bell, Sarah Anne

Contributors dc:contributor

• Svensson, Magdalena
• Diggins, Jennifer
• Nijman, Vincent

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved

Language dc:language

en

DOI dc:identifier

https://doi.org/10.24384/zha8-7y12

OAI identifier oai:identifier

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