{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20261010T034321Z-reviewed-full-unique-works","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0822370891?tag=bookfrontie00-20","asin":"0822370891","authors":["Cal (Crystal) Biruk"],"book_id":"9780822370895","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/cooking-data-9780822370895","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780822370895.jpg?v=2f2f3902ce4a1042","description":"In Cooking Data Cal Biruk offers an ethnographic account of research into the demographics of HIV and AIDS in Malawi to rethink the production of quantitative health data. While research practices are often understood within a clean/dirty binary, Biruk shows that data are never clean; rather, they are always “cooked” during their production and inevitably entangled with the lives of those who produce them. Examining how the relationships among fieldworkers, supervisors, respondents, and foreign demographers shape data, Biruk examines the ways in which units of information—such as survey questions and numbers written onto questionnaires by fieldworkers—acquire value as statistics that go on to shape national AIDS policy. Her approach illustrates how on-the-ground dynamics and research cultures mediate the production of global health statistics in ways that impact local economies and formulations of power and expertise.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780822370895","publication_date":"20180404","publisher":"Duke University Press","slug":"cooking-data","subtitle":"Culture and Politics in an African Research World","title":"Cooking Data"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"SOC002010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"How Cultures Work","score":0.7376,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HEA039020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"HIV & AIDS","score":0.72,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"SOC002010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"How Cultures Work","score":0.7376,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"HEA039020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"HIV & AIDS","score":0.72,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"HIS001020","confidence_band":"high","label":"East African History","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"MED078000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Public Health","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"SOC002010","confidence_band":"high","label":"How Cultures Work","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"How Cultures Work","score":0.7376,"slug":"how-cultures-work"},{"label":"HIV & AIDS","score":0.72,"slug":"hiv-aids"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers interested in ethnographies of global health research","Good for readers interested in how health statistics shape policy and power"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Johanna Tayloe Crane"],"book_id":"9780801479175","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780801479175.jpg?v=2d9e3051814e8852","score":0.6788,"title":"Scrambling for Africa","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780801479175"},{"authors":["Dominik Mattes"],"book_id":"9781805391210","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781805391210.jpg?v=a233617f1b7b68b2","score":0.6716,"title":"Fierce Medicines, Fragile Socialities","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781805391210"},{"authors":["Alyson O'Daniel"],"book_id":"9780803269613","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780803269613.jpg?v=9339ea2a0e284a08","score":0.6609,"title":"Holding on","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780803269613"},{"authors":["Ken Albala"],"book_id":"9780857854131","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780857854131.jpg?v=516a114d1e4f5a58","score":0.6478,"title":"The Food History Reader","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780857854131"},{"authors":["Jonathan Engel"],"book_id":"9780061856761","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780061856761.jpg?v=7450e9359c6c92ec","score":0.6439,"title":"The Epidemic","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780061856761"}],"topics":[],"what_you_get":["Themes: Production of health data, Global health research in Malawi, Statistics, policy, and power.","Reading lane: How Cultures Work and Hiv & Aids.","Publisher: Duke University Press."]},"llm_signals":{"confidence":0.91,"pacing":"unknown","reader_fit":["Readers interested in ethnographies of global health research","Readers interested in how health statistics shape policy and power"],"themes":["Production of health data","Global health research in Malawi","Statistics, policy, and power"],"tropes":[]},"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":true,"llm_signals":true,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":1,"goodreads_ratings_count":22,"goodreads_reviews_count":6,"quality_score":0.8482}}