A book written by Kent Law lecturer Dr Emilie Cloatre inspired a transatlantic telephone interview with students studying law and medicine in the United States.
The interview with Dr Cloatre was recorded and has been posted on NewBooksinMedicine.com, a specialist website that hosts downloadable audio of discussions with writers about books in the field of medicine.
Dr Cloatre was invited to discuss her book, Pills for the Poorest: An Exploration of TRIPS and Access to Medication in Sub-Saharan Africa, by the Centre of Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee .
Dr Laura Stark, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Health, and Society & History, approached Dr Cloatre after reading the book with students in her ‘Medicine on Trial’ class, a class which examines law and medicine from social and cultural perspectives. Dr Stark said her students found the book to be ‘exciting and instructive’.
In the book, Dr Cloatre examines the contentious issue of the links between intellectual property and access to medication. Using ethnographic case studies in Djibouti and Ghana, and insights from social theory and research, Dr Cloatre explores how Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and pharmaceutical patents impact upon the daily practices of those who purchase, distribute, and use (or fail to use) medicines in sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr Stark said: ‘Pills for the Poorest is a significant ethnography of law and healthcare in Africa that shows precisely how this paper tool begat new buildings, relationships, experts, and, indeed, pills, but only in particular places, among certain people, and for particular kinds of pharmaceuticals.
‘Cloatre is a broadly trained scholar and talented researcher who shows the power of Actor Network Theory as an analytic device, and yet does so with a spirit of critique in the best sense: that is, as an act of sympathetic, yet persistent, questioning. As a text itself, the book has potential to reshape the thinking of readers from a wide range of fields, from law, science studies, healthcare policy, and beyond.’
Pills for the Poorest, published in August 2013 by Palgrave Macmillan, was awarded the Hart Socio-Legal Book Prize in March 2014 in recognition of outstanding socio-legal scholarship.
Dr Cloatre is Co-Director of Research at Kent Law School. She is also the Principal Investigator for Technoscience, Law and Society, a network funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council that aims to bring together scholars and practitioners in an exploration of the relationship between law, technoscience and society.
Dr Cloatre’s main research interests lie in the intersection between law and contemporary ‘science and society’ issues – including pharmaceutical flows, access to health, and the politics of climate change regulation. Read more about her research and publications on her staff profile page.