Dr Alicia Davis
- Senior Lecturer (Sociological & Cultural Studies)
- Associate (School of Health & Wellbeing)
email:
Alicia.Davis@glasgow.ac.uk
Advanced Research Centre, 11 Chapel Lane, Rm 5122, University of Glasgow, G11 6EW
Biography
I am a cultural anthropologist and lecturer in Global Health at the Institute of Health and Wellbeing (IHW) and Sociology in the School of Social and Political Sciences. I specialize on issues related to health and disease, environment, conservation, gender, livelihoods, and community-based impact-driven methods in East Africa.
My graduate work was in environmental and cultural anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder where I explored the histories, memories, and risks of communities living on the boarders of national parks and protected areas in Tanzania. Ater a brief stint at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Alaska, working with Native Alaskan communities on subsitence policy, I returned to academia to do postdoctoral work on land rights, women's empowerment, and gender based violence in pastoralist communities in Tanzania.
Before starting at IWH and Sociology here at UoG, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Geography department exploring the impacts of zoonotic diseases on pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in East Africa under a BBSRC, ESRC, and DFID funded Zoonoses in Emerging Livestock Systems (ZELS) project.
I have several research interests and projects spanning global health and conservation, primarily in East Africa. Most of my work falls within a "One Health" framework and is heavily interdisciplinary. Our research teams include veterinary and human health specialists, ecolgists, epidemiologists, economists, geographers, and anthropologists. My projects include topics such as antimicrobial resistance, zoonotic diseases, and pastoralist health and wellbeing. I also investigate environmental topics, such as the impact of drought and climate change on pastoralist livelihoods and more broadly on the intersection of health and environment and within social-environmental systems.
I began a grammatically flawed foray into Swahili in 1997, as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tanzania and continue to stretch my brain fumbling through the Maasai language (I can at least greet people properly, share the news of the day, and ask for a cup of chai). I am an ardent supporter of interdisciplinary research and of bringing the power of anthropology to broad interdisciplinary teams, like those with natural and health scientists, in order to illuminate the impacts of real world challenges on our everyday lives.
Research interests
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Most of my work falls within a "One Health" framework and is heavily interdisciplinary. I work with research teams that include veterinary and human health specialists, ecologists, epidemiologists, economists, geographers, and anthropologists.
My main areas of interest include:
- Global Health & One-Health
- Intersection of human and animal health and environment within social-environmental systems in East Africa
- Zoonotic Disease impacts on rural livestock keepers
- Antimicrobial resistance
- Pastoralist livelihoods, health, and wellbeing
- Environment, conservation, climate change
- Land use change, policy, impacts
- Gender
- Community-based, impact-driven, action-oriented and ethnographic methodologies
- Human-animal relationships
- Ethnography
Current Projects
I have several ongoing projects in the areas of environment and global health.
SNAP-AMR: Supporting the National Action Plan for Antimicrobial Resistance in Tanzania: We are investigating antimicrobial resistance (MRC funded) as well as on how to build locally specific, participatory and effective health campaigns from the grassroots up.
Operationalizing One-Health Interventions in Tanzania (OOHTZ): Building off of previous work on zoonosis with the SEEDZ/(ZELS) platform we are developing one-health interventions with communities in Northern Tanzania.
Extreme Events as Transformative Factors in Pastoral Social-Ecological Systems: This project looks at the impact of past drought events on livelihoods, governance, and traditional systems of livestock management and land use in Northern Tanzania. (National Science Foundation, USA)
Sustainable Interventions for an Emerging Livestock Disease: We are exploring how to create community-driven livestock health interventions around taenia multiceps a cestode parasite, locally known in Tanzania as "ormilo" or "kizunguzungu". We have been working with a local Tanzanian artist and have created video and print materials for education on the lifecycle of this parastite. Check it out!
Grants
These are my recent externally funded research grants here at UoG
- Cattle vaccination against malignant catarrhal fever: balancing pastoral livelihoods, food security and ecosystem integrity in the Serengeti, Tanzania
- BBSRC-Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
- 2020 – 2022
- Health and social impacts of Covid-19 in Scotland (Scotland in Lockdown)
- Office of the Chief Scientific Adviser-CSO, Government of Scotland
- 2020-2021
- https://scotlandinlockdown.co.uk/
- Supporting the National Action Plan for Antimicrobial Resistance in Tanzania (SNAP-AMR)
- MRC-Medical Research Council
- 2018 - 2022
- SNAP-AMR video
- Operationalising One Health Interventions in Tanzania (OOHTZ)
- BBSRC-Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
- 2019 - 2021
- Sustainable Interventions for an Emerging Livestock Disease Problem in East Africa
- BBSRC-Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
- 2018 - 2019
- Extreme Events as Transformative Factors in Pastoral Social-Ecological Systems
- NSF-National Science Foundation, USA
- 2015 - 2019
- Social Economic and Environmental Drivers of Zoonoses in Tanzania (SEEDZ)
- BBSRC-Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Counci/ESRC/DFID
- 2014-2019
- https://livestocklivelihoodsandhealth.org/
Supervision
- Makungu, Christina Michael
Malaria control in Tanzania: exploring human behaviors, activities and risk - Nur Muse, Ahmed
Social Determinants of Health: Understanding Factors Affecting Access to Maternal and Child Healthcare Services by Nomads in Somaliland