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Dr Mark Lamont

Profile summary

Professional biography

Mark Lamont tinkers with social anthropology, history, global development, and medical humanities.

After completing his PhD at Edinburgh (2005), he worked at the University of Victoria (2005-2007) before taking up a position at Goldsmiths, the University of London for a stretch (2007-2014). Mark's first appearance at the OU was as a Research Associate (2016) before moving over to the British Institute in Eastern Africa (2017) and then back again to the OU (2018-2019). Mark is currently a Lecturer in Sustainable Development in DPP (Development Policy & Practice). He is also a member of Innogen. 

Administration

Mark is currently the Postgraduate Convenor for Development Studies and the Pathway Lead for Development Policy and Practice in the Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership.

Research

Mark focuses on the Blue Economy, SDG 14 and maritime communities, and cultural heritage's place in marine spatial planning (MSP). He also works on global health interventions in East Africa. 

Funding

Mark has been involved in three publicly-funded research projects at the OU (FASS-History)

Research interests

ONGOING PROJECTS

'Male Circumcision in Kenya: bio-medicalisation and masculinity in contemporary culture.'

For a briefing, see http://www.open.ac.uk/research/news/new-research-how-kenyan-communities-view-medical-male-circumcision

This Wellcome Trust funded project aimed to tell the story of Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) for HIV prevention in Kenya. Kenya is only one of 14 other African countries in which this mass surgical campaign was rolled-out since 2007 with the goal of circumcising 20.9 million men by 2016.  The specific historical and cultural contexts of male circumcision in this eastern African country demand our attention if we wish to understand the longer-term implications of this medical intervention upon target communities. 

The project grasps VMMC as an artefact of a particular epistemic and organisational turn in the history of AIDS.  Looking at the historical development of medicalised male circumcision for HIV prevention from approximately 1986 to the present is important in several, overlapped ways. Firstly, VMMC is unprecedented as the historically largest public health campaign involving preventative surgery. Secondly, the VMMC approach is consonant with other biomedical HIV prevention measures such as ARVs and PrEP in that biology takes priority over behaviour. Thirdly, the very idea of an approach to containing HIV infections through circumcising millions of African men generated a great deal of controversy and resistance when it was initially proposed. Culture takes on the status of an elephant in the room in such a context, while discussions about human and cultural rights really struggle to get heard. In tandem with significant scientific and bioethical polarisation over the issue of male circumcision, global health governance institutions like WHO (and UNAID) succeded to establish consensus that VMMC would save many lives, a stance that is now 

As one of the first historical treatments of VMMC, important questions about race, colonialism, and the various signifiers associated with foreskins emerge in this context. Various surprising connections between White and African masculinities were made during this research including the place of the White circumciser as medical practitioner. The first medicalisation of male circumcision was enacted by white colonial-era missionaries and medical officers. In multiple historical conjunctures, first in the 1920s at the height of colonial outrages around 'female circumcision controversy', Whiteness has shaped genital cutting practices in Kenya. Further historical work on this topic will have to be undertaken before a definitive account can be written. 

Mark also continues to develop new research bids on marine cultural heritage, inclusivity, and sustainable development. 

MUCH to Discover in Mida Creek: creating pathways to community resilience and sustainable development through the maritime cultural landscape in Kenya

See the project here:

 https://risingfromthedepths.com/much/#:~:text=MUCH%20to%20Discover%20in%20Mida%20Creek%20is%20a%20project%20that,locals%20learn%20about%20its%20potential.

MUCH to Discover in Mida Creek is a project that aims to promote community development through engagement with maritime heritage. Located in Mida Creek, in Kilifi County in Kenya, it sought to make value out of Maritime and Underwater Cultural Heritage (MUCH) by helping locals learn about its potential. By developing a number of economic generating community initiatives relating to MUCH, the project has created outstanding ‘living heritage’ activities that are generating far-reaching interest and investment among the locals. Through forest surveys in the Arabuko Sokoke forest, the project has revealed how local communities use and continue to use the natural forest and Creek for settlement and subsistence as well as maritime activities such as boat building.

Within the project, communities have been involved in maritime archaeological research and surveys; the establishment of a Mida Maritime Heritage Interpretive centre in the archaeologically significant Mida Creek; building a dhow-house and fishermen boatyard using locally traditionally available materials; as well as training in ecotourism and climate change mitigation through mangrove reforestation. Additional alternative livelihood initiatives have been developed in the creek, that will not only help local communities but also help conserve the maritime wider cultural and natural landscape.

The project has demonstrated how MUCH (Maritime and Underwater Cultural Heritage) can be used to create pathways to sustainable community development and resilience.

To begin to share their activities, the Biddi na Kazi Women’s Group at Mida Creek have worked with the Documentary Institute of East Africa to co-create an interactive website:

 

https://much.risingfromthedepths.com/#Home

 

 

Teaching interests

Global Development

Mark is co-chair of DD871 'Key Challenges in Global Development' and author of several weeks in DD870 'Understanding Global Development'. These are core modules in the MSc in Global Development qualification, http://www.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/qualifications/f86

Human Ocean

He is currently designing a series of teaching resources on the 'Human Ocean: Communities, Science, and Sustainable Futures'. This is designed to bring students of ocean sciences, marine social sciences, and maritime communities together into collaborative learning.

Impact and engagement

External collaborations

  • British Institute in Eastern Africa (Honorary Research Fellow)
  • National Museums of Kenya (MUCH to Discover at Mida Creekhttps://risingfromthedepths.com/much/
  • Innogen (Institute of Innovation Generation) OU/Edinburgh

Publications

Forced male circumcision and the politics of foreskin in Kenya (2018-04-12)
Lamont, Mark
African Studies, 77(2) (pp. 293-311)


Introduction: Cultural rights and constitutional change (2018)
Hughes, Lotte and Lamont, Mark
African Studies, 77(2) (pp. 159-170)


Arrive Alive: Road Safety in Kenya and South Africa (2015-04-30)
Lamont, Mark and Lee, Rebekah
Technology and Culture, 56(2) (pp. 464-488)


Speed Governors: Road Safety and Infrastructural Overload in Post-Colonial Kenya, c. 1963–2013 (2013-08)
Lamont, Mark
Africa, 83(3) (pp. 367-384)


Accidents Have No Cure! Road Death as Industrial Catastrophe in Eastern Africa (2012-08)
Lamont, Mark
African Studies, 71(2) (pp. 174-194)


Marine Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development (2023)
Lamont, Mark
In: Cross, Charlotte and Giblin, John D. eds. Critical Approaches to Heritage for Development. Rethinking Development (pp. 144-158)
Publisher : Routledge | Published : London


Ruin, or repair? Infrastructural Sociality and an Economy of Disappearances along a Rural Road in Kenya (2017-02-06)
Lamont, Mark
In: Beck, Karl; Klaeger, Gabriel and Stasik, Michael eds. The Making of the African Road. Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (18) (pp. 171-196)
ISBN : 978-90-04-33904-0 | Publisher : Brill


3 Malinowski and the "Native Question" (2014)
Lamont, Mark
In: Darnell, Regna and Gleach, Frederic W. eds. Anthropologists and Their Traditions Across National Borders. Histories of Anthropology Annual (pp. 69-110)
ISBN : 9780803256873 | Publisher : University of Nebraska Press


Decomposing pollution? Corpses, Burials, and Affliction among the Meru of Central Kenya (2011-09)
Lamont, Mark
In: Jindra, Michael and Noret, Joël eds. Funerals in Africa: explorations of a social phenomenon
ISBN : 978-0-85745-205-4 | Publisher : Berghahn Books


Alternative Rites of Passage in FGM/C Abandonment Campaigns in Africa: A research opportunity (2018)
Droy, Laurence; Hughes, Lotte; Lamont, Mark; Nguura, Peter; Parsitau, Damaris and Wamue Ngare, Grace
LIAS Working Paper Series, Vol. 1, University of Leicester