Description
Health equality and health interventions are underpinned by national and global politics: technical decisions require political decisions about who should provide advice, what policies should be implemented, and how such policies should be enforced. Data and diseases surveillance have come to play a vital role in tackling global health challenges, like antimicrobial resistance (AMR). One key challenge for a global response to AMR is a perceived paucity of data. This paper demonstrates that while several large datasets relating to AMR exist, data remain incompatible, are often hidden behind paywalls, or controlled through limiting access to technical infrastructures. Thus, datasets currently do not translate into knowledge that enables co-ordination or even informs AMR governance. Instead, AMR surveillance is a highly political endeavour. The paper analysis the role of data and the mechanisms through which data are generated, accumulated, harmonised, analysed, and how data are used to inform a global response to AMR. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in India and over 75 interviews conducted with experts in Southeast Asia, the US, and Europe, it argues that data governance is a field of political contestation where powerful state interests obfuscate global governance approaches. The paper further evidences global governance’s inherent tensions as more than contestation in a multilateral arena, but as micro-sites of resistance and post-colonial struggles.
