Regional History and Understanding Ebola in West Africa

For decades, Professor Boubakar Barry has written about, advocated, and worked for a regional approach to African history and contemporary affairs. His approach is particularly important for understanding why Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) spread among Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone in 2014-15, and why those countries faced similar difficulties responding to it. The three have long constituted a region and a sub-region of Senegambia, as described by Barry. Historically they have been integrated by commercial, social, and cultural networks linking individuals, places, communities, and institutions. Their similar histories of extractive economies and structural poverty, with roots back to the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism, made each state ill prepared to address the Ebola crisis. By 2014, their health infrastructures were further depleted by externally imposed public spending cuts, dictatorial regimes, and wars. Those factors led to widespread distrust of government, disengagement, and rebellion, building on a history of action from below. In addition to their networks, peoples’ historical struggles help explain grassroots efforts to combat the disease and build new modes of regional integration. Historical writing focused on nation states has blocked understanding of regional unities and the need for multi-level local, regional, and global analyses.