Talking shit, or comments on ‘Three Achievements of Dirt: Disgust, Humour, Emphasis’

On the 12th October Sjaak van der Geest (University of Amsterdam) presented his paper entitled ‘Three Achievements of Dirt: Disgust, Humour, Emphasis’ as part of the UCL Medical Anthropology Seminar Series, currently dealing with dirt and pollution. Rebecca Williams and Jed Stevenson comment below, followed by a response to both from Sjaak van der Geest. Images and captions…

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Intersubjectivities of Care

Intersubjectivities of Care By Timothy Carroll   The ‘Subjects and Subjectivities of Care’ conference was held on 14 October at UCL Anthropology. Co-organised by Jo Cook (UCL) and Catherine Trundle (Victoria, NZ), the one-day conference was an exciting, thoroughly enjoyable, and critically engaging opportunity to think through the dynamics of care. The intimate setting, with…

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Critical Medical Anthropology: perspectives from/of Latin America

Between the 31st October and the 2nd of November UCL will host a series of seminars to explore contemporary scholarship on critical medical anthropology, with academics from and focused on Latin America. Rita Laura Segato:  “ History and patriarchal violence” Tuesday 31st October, 12.30pm, PUW Sem. room 2. Jaime Breilh: “The relevance of critical Latin American science…

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Reflections from an Anthropology Field School: A Crash Course in Cross-disciplinary Communication

I recently participated in a field school run by the NAPA-OT subsection of the AAA in Antigua, Guatemala. The month-long project on which I worked interrogated the lack of effective communication between different providers of maternal healthcare in the country; biomedical practitioners (OBGYNs & doctors), and non-biomedically trained midwives (‘comadronas’). With one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in Latin America, overcoming boundaries to effective collaboration and referral networks between all medical providers in Guatemala is a key global health concern.

UCL Medical Anthropology Outreach: In Defence of Gender Identities

This is Part II in our series on UCL Medical Anthropology outreach over the summer.  Daniel Newman participated in the UCL Widening Participation Regional Summer Challege (see Part I for more) co-taught by Caroline Ackley and Katja Holtz.  Daniel wrote about gender identity for his final essay. In Defence of Gender Identities By Daniel Newman…

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UCL Medical Anthropology Outreach: Regional Summer Challenge

This is Part I in our series on UCL Medical Anthropology outreach over the summer.  We partnered with UCL Widening Participation.  If you’d like to know more about the work of the Access and Widening Participation Team, please see their website. UCL Medical Anthropology Outreach: Regional Summer Challenge By Caroline Ackley and Katja Holtz For…

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Disability as Method

How do people with different forms of disabilities live the everyday? How do you dress, undress, cut your food or shake people’s hands when you have rheumatoid arthritis? How do you figure out where to get on or off the bus or pay for something at the cash when you are blind? How do you move about when your balance is affected by a painful illness? What possibilities emerge for living, sensing, thinking, and performing the everyday differently when disability enters the stage? These are the questions that drive my research and ethnographic curiosities.

Ethical Dilemmas from New Delhi to Dharamsala

An objective of my research sought to understand whether a concept of ‘mental health’ exists amongst the TCiE (in contrast to the Western definition of mental health that has been developed by UN/WHO). Interestingly, the UN definition appeared incomplete to respondents as it fails to address ethics.

*New paper* ‘Do our bodies know their ways?’ Villagization, food insecurity, and ill-being in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley

Some results from my research in Ethiopia are now available, ahead of publication in African Studies Review. The paper, co-authored with Lucie Buffavand, is a product of several years work in the lower Omo valley, where a massive hydroelectric dam and sugar plantations are reshaping the landscape and people’s opportunities to live within it. We investigated the experience of people subjected to a campaign of ‘villagization’ – resettlement associated with the establishment of plantations on lands previously used for farming, herding, and foraging.

Socio-demographic Shifts in Parenthood in Bogota, Colombia

I am essentially interested in what these profound socio-demographic shifts mean for people who do not have children, as well as for those who do. What does parenthood or non-parenthood look like in this context, where modern families might be unrecognisably different from those that were common just a generation ago? How common is non-parenthood and how is it viewed? What does parenthood mean to women and men with children?