Laurent Vidal is an anthropologist, Research Director at IRD, and a member of UMR SESSTIM. For nearly 40 years, he has been working in Africa (Niger, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Senegal) on health issues (HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, maternal health) and on the epistemology of social sciences in “development contexts”. His work has resulted in the publication of around twenty books, including six authored individually, nearly 60 articles, and numerous book chapters. In the early 2000s, he headed the IRD Social Sciences Center in Abidjan, then the IRD’s social sciences department at its headquarters in Marseille. He was also a member of the Sectoral Scientific Commission for “Human and Social Sciences” at IRD and of Sidaction’s scientific council. From January 2015 to December 2018, he served as IRD Representative in Senegal, (where he was awarded the title of Chevalier of the National Order of the Lion). He then served as IRD Representative in Mali until 2023 and is currently Director of the Joint IRD/CNRS/CIRAD Office in Pretoria, South Africa.
He chairs the Steering Committee of the Global Africa project (https://www.globalafricasciences.org ) and is the scientific coordinator of the PASAS program (Platform for Learning and Knowledge in the Sahel) https://pasas-minka.fr/fr/. He is also chairman of the scientific council of the French Red Cross Foundation.
Introduction The Covid-19 pandemic had significant implications for the legitimacy of governmental actors in many parts of the world. The reception of restrictive measures to control the spread of the…
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