Research seminar: Maternal mortality in East Africa: Impact and history

Maternal mortality is one of the most recalcitrant global health challenges. In Kenya, maternal mortality ratios today are broadly similar to levels observed decades ago, yet over the past fifteen years the Kenyan government has provided free maternal healthcare in public facilities, and in most of the country more than 90% of women attend antenatal and give birth in the clinic. This paper will examine this incongruity between policy, provision, and outcomes. Its argument will be that the seeming continuity in maternal health data are the outcome of profound changes in kinship relations, health communication, professional cultures, and the maternal health marketplace.

The paper's primary focus, however, relates to efforts to make this research impactful, and the questions these efforts have provoked. Should historians seek to influence large-scale social change, and, if so, how? Does an engagement with impact inevitably draw the historian towards the identification of achievable goals? Is impact-focused research inherently purposive, presentist, and selective? How do we strike a balance between pure and "impure" research?

Shane Doyle is Professor of African History at the University of Leeds. His current research focuses on the history of the family and family planning in central Kenya, and of maternal health in western Kenya.