U.S. and Non-U.S. Scholars

Fulbright New Century Scholars Program
Overview • Previous NCS Programs • NCS Scholar List • NCS Brochure • 2001-2002

Lori Leonard

Assistant Professor of International Health
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
Department of International Health
The Chad-Cameroon Pipeline Project: A Test for Globalization of Public Health
United States

Lori Leonard (USA) is an assistant professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where she teaches courses on qualitative research methods. Her previous research has included both ethnographic studies and health-related intervention research and has been conducted primarily in sub-Saharan African and in urban communities in the United States. Her ethnographic work includes studies of the meaning and management of infertility in Chad; the introduction and adoption of female circumcision, also in Chad; and travel-related health practices of first and second-generation Nigerian immigrants in the United States. She has also conducted intervention studies related to the prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases in Houston, Texas and in Kaolack, Senegal.

During the late 1980s, she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in both Zaire and Chad. In 1993-1994, she received a Fulbright Fellowship, as well as fellowships from the Population Council and Harvard University, to conduct her dissertation research in Chad. Subsequent work has been funded by grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the US Public Health Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Science Foundation.

From 1996 to 2000, Dr. Leonard served as the assistant editor of the African Journal of Reproductive Health, a publication of the Women's Health and Action Research Centre in Benin City, Nigeria. She has provided consultation and training to a wide range of universities and organizations, including the Civil-Military Alliance to Combat HIV and AIDS, Baylor University, Texas Southern University, the Harvard Institute for International Development, Save the Children, and the Arctic Investigations Program of the CDC.

· Leonard, L. (2001). Problematizing fertility: 'Scientific' accounts and Chadian women's narratives. In: M. Inhorn, and F. van Balen (Eds.). Infertility around the Globe: New Thinking on Childlessness, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies. University of California Press. In press.
· Leonard, L. (2001). "Looking for children": Explanations for reproductive problems in southern Chad. Medical Anthropology. (In press).
· Leonard, L., and VanLandingham, M. (2001) Adhering to the CDC's travel health recommendations: The experience of Nigerian immigrants in Houston, Texas. Journal of Immigrant Health, 3, 31-45.
· Leonard, L. (2000). "We did it for pleasure only": Hearing alternative tales of female circumcision. Qualitative Inquiry, 6, 212-228.
· Leonard, L., Ndiaye, I., Kapadia, A., Eisen, G., Diop, O., Mboup, S, and Kanki, P. (2000). HIV prevention among male clients of female sex workers in Kaolack, Senegal: Results of a peer education program. AIDS Education and Prevention, 12, 21-37.
· Leonard, L. (1996). Female circumcision in southern Chad: Origins, meaning, and current practice. Social Science and Medicine, 43, 255-263.

In October of 2000, a consortium of oil companies, led by ExxonMobil, began preparations for the construction of a 663-mile underground pipeline that will transport oil from approximately 300 wells, to be developed in southwestern Chad, through southern Chad and Cameroon to an off-shore processing facility in the Atlantic Ocean. Construction of the Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project, which is partially financed by World Bank and International Finance Corporation loans to the governments of Chad and Cameroon, will be completed in 2004, and oil revenues generated for 25 to 30 years thereafter. The development of the oilfield, pipeline, and marine terminal is the largest construction project and one of the largest private-sector investment projects on the continent. It is also seen by some as "a test for globalization" (Associated Press, 2000) and for public health (Kigotho, 1997).

In addition to its size, part of what makes the Pipeline Project a test case is the desperate poverty of Chad, and the unprecedented attention accorded environmental and social concerns, including short as well as longer-term plans for health promotion. World Bank support for the Project followed from an extensive series of assessments and public consultations and was contingent on the establishment of a range of environmental and social safeguards, including provisions for HIV prevention activities; compensation and relocation packages for families resettled as a result of the construction; revenue management plans favoring investments in health, education, and rural and infrastructure development; and the establishment of independent oversight committees.

The Bank's support is nevertheless controversial, and has generated substantial debate between those who contend that business and industrial projects, like the Pipeline Project, can help to alleviate poverty and raise standards of living in poor nations and those who argue that the interests of big business are antithetical to sustainable development. The consortium, the World Bank, and business commentators state that the Pipeline Project will generate much-needed revenue and foreign exchange for the government of Chad that will, in turn, lead to the alleviation of poverty, sustained economic growth, and increased investments in health, education, and rural and infrastructure development (EEPCI, 2000; National Public Radio, 2001; The World Bank Group, 2001).

Environmentalists, human rights groups, and others critical of globalization argue that the Pipeline Project will contaminate the environment and disrupt the lives and livelihoods of local citizens, and that government corruption and mismanagement will result in the diversion of funds earmarked for the health and education sectors (Breitkopf, 2000; Colajacomo, 2000; Higgins, 2000; Rainforest Action Network, 2000).

As part of the NCS Program, I will be studying these conflicting theories of the impact of globalization using published case study material as well as empirical data collected in Chad, in conjunction with a collective of six Chadian human rights organizations, during the international research visit. The focus of my research during the one-year NCS Program will be on the relations between corporations, governments, international and non-governmental organizations, communities, and families, and the implications of shifts in these relations that have accompanied globalization on the production of health. Ideally, the international research visit to Chad and the empirical data collected there will serve as the foundation for a longer-term panel study, in which several villages in southern Chad, as well as comparison villages in other parts of the country, will be followed over time to document the impacts of the Pipeline Project on health and on key determinants of health (e.g., education, employment, kinship networks and social support, migration, food production, etc.) of individuals, families, and communities. This research is expected to contribute to the larger agenda of the NCS program ("Challenges of Health in a Borderless World") by providing data and lessons from a critical case study, and will benefit from discussions of the questions, models, and cases proposed as topics of inquiry by the other Program participants.