Zimitsani Moto: Understanding the Malawi COVID-19 Response
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The discussion of the significance of religion to the ethos of Malawian society is very well developed. The theoretical discussion of its place in a Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaf model is interesting and enlightening, especially in its incorporation of the dynamics of interaction with a more global identification of some of the population and, with it, the importance of economic priorities.
What needs further development and clarification is the application of this discussion and analysis to the complex situation in Malawi. In the three cases mentioned - Prophet David F. Mbewe; Kathumba; Ex Parte Steven Mponda - the court granted various injunctions injunction against the lockdown - was the outcome a complete cessation of lockdowns in Malawi? Since only one of these cases focused on the freedom of religious gatherings, how does this litigation history contribute to our understanding of the central research question regarding religion?
Most important, how do the authors consider the conflict between the demand for freedom to hold religious gatherings and the health justification for lockdown should be balanced.
Author Response
Thank you for taking your time to review our paper and provide your valuable input. The paper has been revised and additional responses to the various issues raised are set out in the attached.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Please check grammar. There are missing articles and other such grammatical errors throughout. I suggest reading it aloud while editing--that can help you detect issues you might otherwise miss.
Avoid beginning a sentence with an ambiguous pronoun, i.e. "This" or "These" or "It." Make it clear what you're referring to. I have a difficult time following your paper whenever there are such sentences.
Overall, the paper is difficult to follow. You're missing commas in key places, which muddles the point you're trying to convey in any given sentence. Furthermore, some of your paragraphs are too long. I recommend working on using simpler, more efficient language.
"2. Government Response to COVID-19 and Reactions to Them." What does "Them" refer to? I think it refers to "Government response," in which cause "Them" should be "It." Make sure nouns agree, i.e. singular vs. plural.
The first three cases were confirmed by whom?
I think you touch upon a really fascinating point, and it's a great debate in the US, too. I think your paper could be helped a lot by better grammar and more cohesive, simpler language.
On the other hand, it seems you're trying to connect some issues that either (1) are loosely connected or (2) are strongly connected but your language is too convoluted to support that point. I think this is a major issue of the paper. I really do think you discuss some very fascinating points in this paper; I wonder if this might be better as two separate papers...?
What is #COVID19? You need to refer to it the same way (and correctly = COVID-19) throughout the entire paper. Consistency is key.
Your paragraphs seem to be sparsely cited--where are the citations?
Author Response
Thank you for taking your time to review our paper and provide your valuable input. The paper has been revised and additional responses to the various issues raised are set out in the attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
“Zimitsani Moto: Understanding the Malawi COVID-19 Response.”
This article grapples with a common problem around the world in this time of pandemic: how to remind human beings steeped in a culture of individual rights that they are part of communities and live and die based on the health of that community. The authors note that traditionally, in Malawi, the culture, under the call of traditional leaders, valued community health and could induce individuals to make sacrifices even at personal cost. Observing the reluctance of Malawians to wear masks and various protests and court cases resisting public health measures, the authors suggest that Malawians have forgotten their traditional culture. They trace this “amnesia” to global influences like Evangelical Christianity in the United States, which has taken hold in Malawi, pushing the culture away from its original Gemeinschaft values to a more individualistic and transactional Gesellschaft orientation. They also note that the rights-based culture and language of liberal democracy is difficult to reconcile with an emphasis on community health trumping individual freedom. And suggest that pocket-book concerns intersect with all of this in a country where many lack basic measures of economic security.
I do not know if this article fits the scope of a Law Journal. I will leave that issue to the Editors.
I found the article fascinating and intelligent and sympathize with the authors’ dismay at the apparent unwillingness of Malawians (and others around the world) to wear a face mask or limit their travel to preserve the health of their communities. The article is rich in its observations and analysis of Malawian culture and how it affects responses to the pandemic. It is valuable for this.
At the same time, the organization of the article makes it less effective than it could be. It tends to loop around and repeat themes several times (eg. Gemeinschaft/ Gesellschaft is discussed at least three different times in the paper). Rights based political framing is also looped through several times, as well as the influence of American evangelicals.
I also found it difficult to isolate the MAIN question of the paper. The authors like to throw a large number of questions out. I would ask them to focus in on a main question and make a central point (provide an answer) to it. Use of sub-titles and sections would also add clarity. By the end of the article, I more or less understood their argument, but I would have liked a clear synopsis of it up front, not just the question(s) asked, but they main argument given.
The authors could also do more to situate the paper in a general scholarly literature. Is this a paper on politics? Anthropology? Who is the intended audience? The authors might also clarify their methodology. Is this a case study? Why is Malawi an interesting case? What do we learn from it?
The authors might find the following publication useful as it discusses the role of religious leaders (vs. other types of authority) in encouraging compliance:
Kao, K., E. Lust, B. Dulani, KE. Ferree, AS Harris, and E Metheney. 2021. “The ABCs of Covid-19 Prevention in Malawi: Authority, benefits, and costs of compliance.” World Development 137.
The author might also find the discussion of culture and disease in this article (about Guinea and Ebola) interesting:
Fairhead, James. 2016. “Understanding Social Resistance to the Ebola Response in the Forest Region of the Republic of Guinea: An Anthropological Perspective.” African Studies Review 59(3).
Author Response
Thank you for taking your time to review our paper and provide your valuable input. The paper has been revised and additional responses to the various issues raised are set out in the attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The conclusion is a moral judgement ("the critique sounds harsh" as is said in line 589), whereas the title and layout of the article sounded descriptive ; "understanding the covid-response".
The Malawian response is being criticized for being "amnesiac" (strange phrase) of the African umunthu-perspective. The Malawian response that is being referred to appears to be the court cases that have been made. Even if the court cases approach the issue from a Western individualistic approach, this could be explained by the requirements of the court-system, or by the particularities of the very small number of people involved in the court cases. These alternative explanations need to be excluded before a conclusion can be drawn about "the Malawian response".
The contrast that underlies the entire argument between an African umunthu-perspective and a Western individualistic one, is, on the one hand, not very innovative, and, on the other hand, not argued very well. The holistic perspective from the cited Banjul-declaration and WHO-definition of health apply outside Africa just as well, and the equation of umunthu with Gemeinschaft both requires a lot more argument and does not add much to this particular discussion.
Describing Malawian society as "primordial" (line 497) might be reconsidered: it could be offensive and it is not very clear what this desciption does imply.
The sources that are used to support broad claims about the role of religion or community in human societies in general are sometimes small, obscure articles, for example Schuurman and Christenson.
It is questionable whether the neo-Pentecostal approach to religion derives from the USA completely as is suggested. It could have been adapted to an African context.
In general, the court cases against the Malawian Covid-regulations are interesting, but the conclusions that are drawn from these are too broad and judgemental.
Author Response
Thank you for taking your time to review our paper and provide your valuable input. The paper has been revised and additional responses to the various issues raised are set out in the attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors have satisfactorily addressed my concerns. I highly recommend that they use a professional editor as the quality of the paper's writing is highly uneven. The new sections added in response to reviewers are particularly rough, with many typos and grammatical errors.
Author Response
Thank you. Further edits have been done to the article. We will consult an professional editor for further refinement.
