(Almost) Fifteen Years of Observational Field Journals in sub-Saharan Africa: Innovations and Insights from Malawi and South Africa

This paper takes a retrospective look at the substantive, theoretical and methodological innovations and contributions of the Malawi/South Africa Journals Project, an archive of over 1200 observational journals from 1999 to the present. The journals provide intensive details of day-to-day rural life in a range of settings, focusing the interactions, interpretations, and challenges that populate informal social networks. The journals provide a longitudinal account of communities, households and individuals coping with the phases of the AIDS epidemic, from the era of highest prevalence, through the expansion of prevention campaigns, to the coming of HIV testing, and, most recently, the rollout of treatment. Using the journals, scholars have been able to identify how ordinary Malawians have negotiated matters of love, risk and death in the face of their knowledge of AIDS, and how local dynamics have shaped the uptake and use of innovations from "outside", ranging from the clinical apparatuses of biomedicine to the "talking technologies" of self-help and support groups. We identify the unique contributions of this extraordinary archive, and consider both its limitations and future directions.