{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,7]],"date-time":"2026-06-07T17:55:48Z","timestamp":1780854948991,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":26,"publisher":"Cambridge University Press (CUP)","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,16]],"date-time":"2024-05-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1715817600000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["J. Biosoc. Sci."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,3]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>This paper compares community responses to Ebola and Covid-19 in two regions of southern and eastern Sierra Leone with reference to the theory of institutional dynamics proposed by the anthropologist Mary Douglas. Institutions, Douglas argued, are conveyed by styles of thought, shaped by the ways human communities, through everyday practices, reinforce systems of classification and denotation. Pandemic advice to \u2018follow the science\u2019 proved problematic, since there is no single institution of science, and institutions never stand alone but are bundled with other institutions, reflecting the manifold and intertwined practices of human social life. The paper explores some of the ways a traumatic epidemic of Ebola Virus Disease in Sierra Leone shaped a distinctive local response to this deadly infectious disease in the absence of an effective vaccine. This local approach emphasised social rules based on ideas about sequestration and testing. Communities then proposed to continue this rules-based approach to the pandemic of Covid-19 and showed little initial enthusiasm for vaccination. With Ebola, the adoption of rules resulted in dramatic drops in infection rates. But Covid-19 spreads in different ways, and good results from the application of social rules were much less apparent. The paper shows how communities began to grapple with this new situation. In some cases, vaccine hesitation was overcome by treating the requirement for vaccination as a new form of social discipline. More generally, it is concluded that epidemiologists need to pay specific attention to institutions and institutional dynamics in order to better understand and anticipate public reactions to new disease threats.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1017\/s002193202400021x","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,16]],"date-time":"2024-05-16T05:46:08Z","timestamp":1715838368000},"page":"86-101","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Comparing social responses to Ebola and Covid-19 in Sierra Leone: an institutional analysis"],"prefix":"10.1017","volume":"58","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5813-0228","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Paul","family":"Richards","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Njala University"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Foday","family":"Kamara","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Njala University"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6442-7423","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Esther","family":"Mokuwa","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Wageningen University"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0006-0286-4883","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Marion","family":"Nyakoi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Eastern Technical University"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"56","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref2","volume-title":"The Yellow Demon of Fever: Fighting Disease in the Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Slave Trade","author":"Barcia","year":"(2020)"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1136\/bmjgh-2021-007271"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref13","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/S0022278X21000422"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref19","volume-title":"How can the health systems of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia be improved?","author":"Papkalla","year":"2016"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref1","unstructured":"Allegretti, A , Davis, N and Davies, C (2022) Sunak accused of \u2018rewriting history\u2019 by saying No 10 ignored lockdown harms, The Guardian 25 August 2022, 21.31 CEST"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref24","article-title":"Traditional leaders and the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic.","volume":"82","author":"Van de Windt","year":"2020","journal-title":"Journal of Politics"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1136\/bjsports-2022-105733"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref12","volume-title":"A Mende-English Dictionary","author":"Innes","year":"1969"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref6","volume-title":"How Classification Works: Nelson Goodman Among the Social Sciences","author":"Douglas","year":"1992"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.5479\/sil.309515.39088000758763"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref15","unstructured":"Mokuwa, EY (2020) Epidemics and community conflicts: the value of indigenous institutions in addressing development shocks in rural Sierra Leone. PhD Thesis, Wageningen University and Research. https:\/\/www.proquest.com\/openview\/c53b46c3f75c92bdc3edd218ad0b7f8c\/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2026366&diss=y."},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0234823"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref17","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pntd.0007666"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref8","volume-title":"A Krio-English Dictionary","author":"Fyle","year":"1980"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.24894\/Gesn-en.2020.77014"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.5040\/9781350219779"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref4","volume-title":"Purity and Danger","author":"Douglas","year":"1966"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref20","volume-title":"Coping with Hunger: Hazard and Experiment in a West African Rice-Farming System","author":"Richards","year":"1986"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref5","volume-title":"How Institutions Think","author":"Douglas","year":"1986"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref14","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/oxfordjournals.afraf.a093668"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref18","unstructured":"Mokuwa, EY and Richards, P (2022) Community responses to public health in Sierra Leone: Ebola community care centres and village clinics compared, PARES inception workshop, September 2022, London: LSHTM"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/S0021932023000287"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S1473-3099(17)30111-1"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref7","unstructured":"Douglas, M (1995) Institutions: problems of theory. [Original in English, first publication in Italian, first published in English in Perri 6 and Gerald Mars eds., 2008, The Institutional Dynamics of Culture, vol. 1. Aldershot: Ashgate."},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref25","unstructured":"WHO (2022) Methods for estimating the excess mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. https:\/\/www.who.int\/publications\/m\/item\/methods-for-estimating-the-excess-mortality-associatedwith-the-covid-19-pandemic"},{"key":"S002193202400021X_ref23","volume-title":"Mary Douglas.","author":"Richards","year":"2023"}],"container-title":["Journal of Biosocial Science"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/services\/aop-cambridge-core\/content\/view\/S002193202400021X","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,29]],"date-time":"2026-05-29T11:11:53Z","timestamp":1780053113000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/product\/identifier\/S002193202400021X\/type\/journal_article"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,16]]},"references-count":26,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,3]]}},"alternative-id":["S002193202400021X"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/s002193202400021x","relation":{},"ISSN":["0021-9320","1469-7599"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0021-9320","type":"print"},{"value":"1469-7599","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2024,5,16]]}}}