Introduction

This edited volume treats policy as an ethnographic object. Examining both policy spaces and sites of practice, the chapters illuminate both professionals’ and lay people’s intimate encounters with health policies. By ‘studying up’ and considering the multiplicity of actors and interests involved in global policies for improving maternal and reproductive health, the ten chapters in this volume track the processes and politics of policymaking and the mechanisms of their implementation in diverse contexts in Asia, Africa, Europe and South America. The chapters provide in-depth analyses of the complexities of policy formulation and implementation, the impact of socio-political contexts, as well as issues of local agency, equity and accessibility. Together, they demonstrate the value of ethnography as well as reproduction as a unique site for the generation of rich insights into the working of global health policies and their impacts. Such critical social science research is increasingly recognised as a crucial part of the evidentiary basis upon which people-centred and equitable health policy and systems everywhere are built. This volume will be of interest to scholars working at the intersection of critical global health, medical anthropology, and health policy and systems research, as well as to global public health practitioners.