Seen but not meant

Abstract

The 2014–16 Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone was followed by a massive humanitarian epidemic response, which I, as a health care NGO worker in the country, witnessed materialize. Like previous international humanitarian efforts in the country, the juggernaut of humanitarian resources, personnel, military assets, and organizations was at times experienced by Sierra Leoneans as spectacle, devoid of substantive care. The epidemic and the response to it had become enfolded into what Mbembe calls the “aesthetics and stylistics” of political power in the postcolony. The logic of this political spectacle can be traced through three ethnographic scenes from the epidemic, which I gloss as “rumor,” “violence,” and “militarization.” Stories told by Ebola survivors from one village reveal the ongoing demands of sociality and care that unfolded “beneath” the spectacle, helping us consider the broader relationships among political authority, spectacle, and vulnerability in moments of humanitarian crisis and contingency.