A virtual global community of practice connecting

critical and applied social science scholars, advocates and learners

from a range of disciplines, institutions and settings

to increase our collective visibility, collaboration and impact.

The mission of the centre is to connect social science TB scholars, trainees, and advocates from a range of disciplines, institutions, and settings, coalesce efforts and elevate the social science gaze on TB.

The hope is that SSHIFTB will stimulate new thinking around practices and interventions to address the social and sociomedical aspects of TB, and complement ongoing efforts in other domains of the global TB response.

By leveraging the virtual space, we actively seek to include ideas and research from around the world.

SSHIFTB is supported by funding from the Dahdaleh Institute of Global Health Research (DIGHR), and a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Development grant between York University in Canada, the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa, and the Athena Institute at Vrije University Amsterdam in The Netherlands.

Tuberculosis is the world's leading infectious disease killer. Despite investments in research and programming, major declines in incidence or mitigation of its social impacts remain to be seen. Particular countries and populations are immensely, and inequitably, affected. While TB has long been recognized as a social disease, responses to TB seldom adhere to this framing.

SSHIFTB seeks to change this rhetoric. We connect people who arrive at the problem of TB from a range of disciplines, institutions, and settings around the world to inspire new (and nuanced) thought and social innovation, and we invite persons with lived experience to help lead the dialogue. We recognize the geographies and disciplines which may separate our team, with a view to interrogate and dispense with those boundaries and distinctions, rather harnessing them as a force for transdisciplinary transformative action.

In this virtual space, TB is situated as a social disease, with innumerable drivers, constructions, implications, and consequences. As with the process of much social science inquiry, the mission and scope of the Centre will evolve through the lens, voice, and situation of those who come to be involved, complexities and divergences therein, and the ongoings of our exigent worlds. In its early stages, the Centre will serve as a repository of people, organizations, news, resources, and opportunities to inspire ideas and facilitate partnerships. We will gradually host original commentaries, events, and dedicate funds to stimulate scholarly or advocacy outputs that complement the efforts of others working in TB.

We welcome scholars and organisations that utilise anthropology, economics, education, ethics, geography, history, law, linguistics, philosophy, political science, sociology, and/or related social science and humanities disciplines in their work in TB to reach out and learn about opportunities to get involved.