Politics of Potential: Global Health and Gendered Futures in South Africa

What if adult diabetes risk was a function of nutrition in-utero? What would it mean for future prosperity if countries acted on the evidence that height at age two is predictive of future human capital?

In the last decade, the understanding that human health and development are profoundly shaped by early life environmental conditions has animated a global health focus on nutrition in the first 1000 days of life.

The Politics of Potential examines how new scientific understandings of the developmental origins of health and disease constitute new forms of intergenerational responsibility that are racialized and gendered, and how these overlook the everyday potentialities that shape perceptions of the future in South Africa.

Why was the First One Thousand Days project so readily adopted by South Africa and many other countries? Dr Michelle Pentecost not only explores this question but also discusses the science of intergenerational transmissions of health, disease, and human capital and how this constitutes new forms of intergenerational responsibility.

Commentators: Megan Vaughan (UCL IAS), Jenny Hall (UCL Institute for Women’s Health) and Taylor Riley (UCL Anthropology).

Bio:

Dr Michelle Pentecost has a dual training in clinical medicine (University of Cape Town) and medical anthropology (University of Oxford). She is based in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at King’s College London and she holds honorary affiliations to the University of the Witwatersrand, the Geneva Graduate Institute and the University of Cape Town. Her primary research in South Africa is focused on the social science of early life interventions. She is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and an NRF Y1 rated researcher. Michelle’s work has also received support from DFID, the Wellcome Trust and the British Academy.

This is a joint event with and the , and will be followed by a drinks reception in the Anthropology common room (6:30-7:30pm).

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Daryll Forde Seminar Room, Taviton Street 14-16, London, United Kingdom