Emily Mendenhall, Lucy W Kamau, Nora Kenworthy, Edna N Bosire
{"title":"肯尼亚的数字行动主义:从数字中心到数字边缘的长期经验。","authors":"Emily Mendenhall, Lucy W Kamau, Nora Kenworthy, Edna N Bosire","doi":"10.1186/s12992-025-01120-9","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Digital activism around Long Covid has reverberated around the globe, as patients, researchers, and clinicians worked together to understand the chronic condition. However, Long Covid networks, much like other social networks, have hierarchies and barriers that can impede equitable access. In this article, we examine how the global digital center and periphery shape how people with Long Covid connect to networks to learn about their illness symptoms, diagnoses, treatments, and experiences. We introduce case narratives of two Kenyan women-one elite Nairobian who was connected to the digital center and another middle class woman who connected with her through a peripheral digital community-to describe how elite patients were engaged at the digital center, and non-elite patients were engaged in the periphery with digital and non-digital connections through which they cultivated other social networks to communicate, share, and experience their illness experiences. The Kenyan case study introduces a context where people have sophisticated digital lives and are engaged in global information networks. Yet, we argue that some Long Covid patients' experiences are impossible to divorce from the digital activism that has drawn together a remarkable global patient community, causing a ripple effect on how people define and experience the self and illness throughout the world. We conclude that many Kenyans may be engaging with digital networks differently and from different places of geographic, cultural, linguistic, and technological power, possibly cultivating divergent idioms, interpretations, and experiences of the post-viral condition. This demonstrates not only how social networks function at the digital periphery but also the complexities situated within the periphery itself, which is at important social nodes, connected to the digital center.</p>","PeriodicalId":12747,"journal":{"name":"Globalization and Health","volume":"21 1","pages":"33"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12123976/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Digital activism in Kenya: moving from the digital center to the digital periphery of Long Covid experience.\",\"authors\":\"Emily Mendenhall, Lucy W Kamau, Nora Kenworthy, Edna N Bosire\",\"doi\":\"10.1186/s12992-025-01120-9\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<p><p>Digital activism around Long Covid has reverberated around the globe, as patients, researchers, and clinicians worked together to understand the chronic condition. However, Long Covid networks, much like other social networks, have hierarchies and barriers that can impede equitable access. In this article, we examine how the global digital center and periphery shape how people with Long Covid connect to networks to learn about their illness symptoms, diagnoses, treatments, and experiences. We introduce case narratives of two Kenyan women-one elite Nairobian who was connected to the digital center and another middle class woman who connected with her through a peripheral digital community-to describe how elite patients were engaged at the digital center, and non-elite patients were engaged in the periphery with digital and non-digital connections through which they cultivated other social networks to communicate, share, and experience their illness experiences. The Kenyan case study introduces a context where people have sophisticated digital lives and are engaged in global information networks. Yet, we argue that some Long Covid patients' experiences are impossible to divorce from the digital activism that has drawn together a remarkable global patient community, causing a ripple effect on how people define and experience the self and illness throughout the world. We conclude that many Kenyans may be engaging with digital networks differently and from different places of geographic, cultural, linguistic, and technological power, possibly cultivating divergent idioms, interpretations, and experiences of the post-viral condition. This demonstrates not only how social networks function at the digital periphery but also the complexities situated within the periphery itself, which is at important social nodes, connected to the digital center.</p>\",\"PeriodicalId\":12747,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Globalization and Health\",\"volume\":\"21 1\",\"pages\":\"33\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":5.9000,\"publicationDate\":\"2025-05-30\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12123976/pdf/\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Globalization and Health\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"3\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-025-01120-9\",\"RegionNum\":2,\"RegionCategory\":\"医学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q1\",\"JCRName\":\"PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL & OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Globalization and Health","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-025-01120-9","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL & OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH","Score":null,"Total":0}
Digital activism in Kenya: moving from the digital center to the digital periphery of Long Covid experience.
Digital activism around Long Covid has reverberated around the globe, as patients, researchers, and clinicians worked together to understand the chronic condition. However, Long Covid networks, much like other social networks, have hierarchies and barriers that can impede equitable access. In this article, we examine how the global digital center and periphery shape how people with Long Covid connect to networks to learn about their illness symptoms, diagnoses, treatments, and experiences. We introduce case narratives of two Kenyan women-one elite Nairobian who was connected to the digital center and another middle class woman who connected with her through a peripheral digital community-to describe how elite patients were engaged at the digital center, and non-elite patients were engaged in the periphery with digital and non-digital connections through which they cultivated other social networks to communicate, share, and experience their illness experiences. The Kenyan case study introduces a context where people have sophisticated digital lives and are engaged in global information networks. Yet, we argue that some Long Covid patients' experiences are impossible to divorce from the digital activism that has drawn together a remarkable global patient community, causing a ripple effect on how people define and experience the self and illness throughout the world. We conclude that many Kenyans may be engaging with digital networks differently and from different places of geographic, cultural, linguistic, and technological power, possibly cultivating divergent idioms, interpretations, and experiences of the post-viral condition. This demonstrates not only how social networks function at the digital periphery but also the complexities situated within the periphery itself, which is at important social nodes, connected to the digital center.
期刊介绍:
"Globalization and Health" is a pioneering transdisciplinary journal dedicated to situating public health and well-being within the dynamic forces of global development. The journal is committed to publishing high-quality, original research that explores the impact of globalization processes on global public health. This includes examining how globalization influences health systems and the social, economic, commercial, and political determinants of health.
The journal welcomes contributions from various disciplines, including policy, health systems, political economy, international relations, and community perspectives. While single-country studies are accepted, they must emphasize global/globalization mechanisms and their relevance to global-level policy discourse and decision-making.