Free Market Tuberculosis: Managing Epidemics in Post-Soviet Georgia

Acknowledgments

ix acknowledgments am humbled by the generosity of everyone who helped make possible my research and its completion with this book. I express my deepest gratitude to everyone in Tbilisi who assisted me, especially at the National Tuberculosis Program (NTP), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and other NGO and aid workers locally involved with TB control. Numerous people took time out of their already busy lives to arrange interviews and observations and access other resources, and to generally help me understand the deep cultural and political aspects of tuberculosis control in Georgia. To maintain his or her confidentiality, I do not thank anyone by name here. To those of you who befriended and fed me, walked me from one hospital to another, arranged visits to other clinical sites and prisons, helped with translations, spent hours talking with me, and patiently taught me everything I ever wanted to know about Georgian medicine, everyday laboratory work and TB diagnostics—and you know who you are—thank you. Dr. H. Kenneth Walker, Dr. Zviad Kirtava, and the late Dr. Archil Kobaladze encouraged my earliest interests in medicine in Georgia and helped me establish connections with the NTP. I extend extra thanks to everyone at the National Reference Laboratory (NRL). The NRL became not only an anchor for my research, but also a center of my social life. It remains one of the places in Tbilisi where I always feel at home. This book is primarily based on the analyses, opinions, and experiences of those in Georgia who participated in the project, but the anthropological interpretations and analyses that I present are entirely my own and I am responsible for any errors. Personal relationships are fundamental to anthropology, and yet conducting research and writing can be the loneliest affairs. Excellent company, meals, excursions, and more than anything else, friendship enriched my life in Tbilisi. In addition to friends and colleagues at the NTP and affiliated organizations, I thank Dorothy x Free MarkeT Tuberculosis Rogers Mayhew, Dawn Le, Lauren Ninoshvili, David Ninoshvili, Marina Ninoshvili, Sergo Ninoshvili, Jessica Lapenn and Tamara Otiashvili. I also thank Tinatin Meparishvili and Dato Toklikishvili for research assistance. At the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research Rayna Rapp, Bruce Grant, and Adriana Petryna enhanced this project in its earliest manifestation with their un-wavering support, enthusiasm, teaching, and their own exemplary research. Special thanks to Rayna for her mentoring, compassion, and assiduousness, and for everything we share as friends. Steven C. Caton, Veena Das, Deborah Poole, and William Roseberry also fostered my intellectual growth at the New School in significant ways. Colleagues and friends from the New School, the Harriman Institute of Columbia University, and Middlebury College sustained me and helped me further my work. In particular, I extend heartfelt thanks to fellow New Schoolers: Anne Galvin, Lauren Martin, Amy Donovan, Liz Fitting, Sameena Mullah, Karolina Szmagalska-Follis, Simanti Dasgupta, Catherine Ziegler, Richard Wells, Hana Cervinkova, Athena Athanasiou, Aaron Goodfellow, Marina Sitrin, Lorraine Herbst, Nicole Luce-Rizzo, Amanda Coleman , Robin Lebaron, Aleeze Sattar Moss, Sarah Orndorff, and Lois Woestman. For varying combinations of friendship, care, scholarly inspiration , comments, and invitations to present my work at conferences and workshops I am indebted to many people. Wholehearted thanks to Michael Montoya, Karen-Sue Taussig and family, Deborah Heath, Barbara Ley, Todd Meyers, Sarah D. Phillips, Michele Rivkin-Fish, Electra Weeks and family, Andrew Lakoff, Stephen J. Collier, Eugene Raikhel, Krista Harper, Kristy Bright, Vincanne Adams, Mathew Wolf-Meyer, Cynthia Buckley, Lale Yalçin-Heckmann, Rebecca Holder MacDonald, and Renah Feldman. I owe Paul Manning special thanks for mutual venting, helping me navigate research in Georgia, and for lots of great feedback. Nancy Ries and Michele Rivkin-Fish both generously read this manuscript in its entirety at various stages, offering essential feedback without which I would not have finished. Elizabeth Dunn gave me helpful comments on an earlier version of this book, and Suzanne Simon provided feedback on portions of it in prior manifestations. acknowledgMenTs xi Micha Sinclair kindly and patiently helped with the introduction at the last minute. I have been fortunate to find a collegial, fun and stimulating intellectual home at the University of Kentucky. I thank all of my wonderful colleagues and friends in the Department of Anthropology for supporting my scholarly pursuits, and for valuing the important lessons the experiences of people in an understudied country bring to medical anthropology and global...