Whose Rationality Is It? Following Antibiotic and AMR Facts in Thailand

This project is offered as part of the Medical Research Foundation National PhD Training Programme in AMR: https://www.findaphd.com/search/PhDDetails.aspx?CAID=3755

Thailand’s cabinet has recently approved an antimicrobial strategic plan. This plan places a major focus on rational antibiotic use and education as the means to achieve this. Such attempts to educate tend to take the stability of AMR and antibiotic knowledge for granted. However, there are many actors involved within the production and enactment of knowledge about AMR and antibiotic uses, and the diverse settings where it is produced. Simply promoting increased awareness about proper antibiotic use fails to grasp this. What is deemed good antibiotic use can differ dramatically for different actors and disciplines, depending on the outcomes they view as desirable. Furthermore, understandings of antibiotics, microbes, AMR and their inter-relations can also differ widely. Failure to take diverging understandings seriously is likely to underestimate the complexity of increasing understanding, and lead to the limited success of attempts to improve ‘rational’ antibiotic use. This PhD study will take an interdisciplinary approach, combining history and anthropology, to document various knowledge practices relevant to antibiotics and AMR in Thailand. The study will follow how different ‘facts’, scientific or popular, come to be produced and travel across disciplines, spaces and groups, as well as exploring various relevant processes and reactions. The successful candidate will be enrolled in the ESRC UCL, Bloomsbury and East London Doctoral Training Programme which will provide additional training opportunities and local student cohort activities.

Apply here: https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/fees-funding/funding-scholarships/research-degree-funding

Further application details will be provided via the link.