Gemma Aellah

Biography

Gemma Aellah (nee Jones) is a social anthropologist with interests in global health research and intervention in Africa. Before joining the 5S Foundation as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow, she carried out fieldwork around the practices of medical research, first on mental health trials in East London and then on transnational medical research in both urban and rural Kenya. She is interested in exploring medical research and intervention not as a separate domain of practice but as deeply embedded in – and reflective of - realms of social, economic, and political life.

In Kenya she worked on the Trial Communities Study with Wenzel Geissler, an anthropological study attached to an international HIV research clinic. Her related doctoral work at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine took as its starting point the place of transnational medical research activities in the everyday lives of the researchers, participants and wider community associated with a long-standing rural health and demographic surveillance site.  

She is interested in developing creative ways to communicate anthropology knowledge. She previously worked for the Royal Anthropological Institute as Education Officer, and later Research Officer. She is co-author of a workbook for global health researchers which encourages open discussion of ethical challenges when conducting research across inequalities.