So far, the twenty-first century has been a boom time for studies of health, illness, healing, and care work in Africa, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only increased attention to these issues. Yet again, current events remind us that history, politics, social relationships, and public health are inextricably linked. These five books encompass a range of approaches to the questions and sources that animate these studies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including anthropology, public health, gender studies, medicine, political science, and history. Each of these authors and editors is explicit about their commitment to reaching an interdisciplinary audience and, for most of them, interdisciplinary work is core to their professional identities. Paul Farmer, Luke Messac, and Simukai Chigudu all earned medical degrees as well as doctoral degrees in medical anthropology, history and sociology of science and medicine, and international development respectively; Nolwazi Mkhwanazi and Lenore Manderson describe themselves as working “at the intersections of medical anthropology, public health and gender studies” (vii). These five books reflect the wide range of authors and audiences engaging in questions about what constitutes health, how it is achieved or undermined, and how the past has contributed to present conditions on the continent.

迄今为止，二十一世纪是非洲健康、疾病、治疗和护理工作研究的繁荣时期，而 COVID-19 大流行只会增加人们对这些问题的关注。时事再次提醒我们，历史、政治、社会关系和公共卫生之间有着千丝万缕的联系。这五本书涵盖了一系列解决问题的方法和来源，从人类学、公共卫生、性别研究、医学、政治学和历史等不同学科的角度推动了这些研究。这些作者和编辑中的每一位都明确表示他们致力于吸引跨学科读者，对于他们中的大多数人来说，跨学科工作是他们职业身份的核心。保罗·法默 (Paul Farmer)、卢克·梅萨克 (Luke Messac) 和西姆凯·奇古杜 (Simukai Chigudu) 均获得医学学位，并分别获得医学人类学、科学与医学历史和社会学以及国际发展博士学位；诺尔瓦齐·姆赫瓦纳齐 (Nolwazi Mkhwanazi) 和莱诺尔·曼德森 (Lenore Manderson) 将自己描述为“在医学人类学、公共卫生和性别研究的交叉领域工作”(vii)。这五本书反映了众多作者和读者对健康的构成、如何实现或破坏健康以及过去如何导致非洲大陆目前状况等问题的思考。