Sjaak van der Geest is Emeritus Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of
Amsterdam. He was one of the first authors to write about pharmaceuticals as social and
cultural phenomena in the context of everyday life. Together with Susan R. Whyte he
edited the first collection of articles in ‘pharmaceutical anthropology’ (1988). He has
done fieldwork in Ghana and Cameroon on a variety of subjects such as sexual
relationships and birth control, the use and distribution of medicines, concepts of dirt,
hygiene and defecation, and others. This interview took place on 06 March 2019 in
Amsterdam. A complete overview of his work on medicines / pharmaceuticals is
presented on his website: www.sjaakvandergeest.nl .
