Changing perspectives, Infrastructuring care
MICHELA COZZA On 21 March 2020, during the first COVID-19 pandemic peak in Italy, a group of doctors working at the Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Bergamo, published…
Tag: medical anthropology
Podcast #3 is online! Guest: Haiyue (Fiona) Shan
In this episode, Puck de Boer talks to Haiyue (or Fiona, her English name) Shan, a PhD student at the Sociology department of VU University. From a holistic,…
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Consciously (Re)Quarantined
As nations across Europe find the inevitable domino of new national lockdowns knocking into them, we may all approach ‘this time’ differently from the last. During the interim…
Reshaping the bulimic self by Leonie Mol
The current clinical and social explanations of bulimia in the United Kingdom are based upon two premises: 1) that bulimia is a derivative of anorexia, and 2) that…
Ethnomedicinal Practices and Behavioral Changes During Deadly Disease Outbreaks: A Commentary and Lesson from Cameroon by Ivo Ngade
In mid-2014, six months after the death of patient zero, the two-year-old boy in the village of Meliandou in Guinea, there were frequent reports of Ebola spikes across Guinea…
Paying attention: Diagnosis, values, and meaning-making in the ADHD clinic by Angela Marques Filipe
Attention, as you know, is the basic faculty, the mother faculty of what we commonly call intelligence. Those who play a role in education must, above all, provoke…
Staying (at Home) with Brain Fog: “Un-witting” Patient Activism by Emily Lim Rogers
Scene 1: It’s Sunday afternoon, around one o’clock, and a group of a dozen or so people log onto a video call from their apartments. Occasionally someone’s cat…
Nicole Weydmann, Kristina Großmann, Maribeth Erb, Novia Tirta Rahayu Tijaja: Healing in context: Traditional medicine has an important role to play in Indonesia’s fight against the coronavirus
The first two cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia were announced on 2 March 2020, quite late compared to other countries. The first patient was a 31-year-old woman who…
The Vector, the Viruses, and the “Healthy World”: Placing Aedes aegypti in Brazil
Mosquito: the “most dangerous animal in the world,” human’s “deadliest predator.” This insect is often described as the most probable target for gene-editing technologies that have the potential…
Chemical Sensitivity by Aaron Bradshaw
Sitting at a table in his home in Snowflake, Arizona, Steen reads a book encased in a clear, plastic box. The front of the box is fitted with…
40: Quarantine & The Origins of Computation
Quarantine is a number. Quarantine was the name given to the strategy of isolating potentially harmful populations for forty days in an effort to impede potential dangers. Deriving…
Epistemic and Temporal Disjunctions: (Re)Mapping “Suicide Risk” Epigenetics Through Birth Cohorts by Stephanie Lloyd
The McGill Group for Suicide Studies (MGSS) has garnered significant attention for its epigenetic models of suicide risk. These models suggest that early life adversity may set people…
Working Definitions: Making and Unmaking “Medical Anthropology” around the World by Paschal Kum Awah
Somatosphere Special Series – Call for Contributions Editors: Professor Paschal Kum Awah (Chair, Anthropology, University of Yaoundé I) and Elizabeth Durham (PhD Candidate, Anthropology, Pri…
Some Chloroquine-AZT Parallels and Science’s Credibility Struggles
As an anthropologist and STS researcher, a great deal of my academic career has been proudly dedicated to studying and denouncing the bias, inequalities, and prejudice within both…
Engaging the Pandemic
How one medical anthropologist is boosting our capacity to understand and contend with COVID-19. In late February 2020, I traveled back to the United States from India and…
On Pandemic Prophecy, Unsustainable Lockdowns and the Magic of Numbers: A Conversation with Carlo Caduff #MUHUM
As vast parts of the world went into Covid-19 lockdown over the past months critics of this approach have emerged from a broad spectrum: amongst others, libertarians who…
Catching up with Glenn Shepard: Interview to launch benefit photography sale with Linda Matney Gallery
This interview launches a new partnership with Linda Matney Gallery. Proceeds from the sale of selected photographs will directly support vital health services including emergency Covid-19 prevention …
Mental Health Avenues Amidst A Global Pandemic: Conceptualising The Biosocial Medical Framework Within Urban ‘Green Spaces’
TIFFANY LOERA Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. This is my morning mantra. As I lay in my bed in the early hours of the morning, I am aware of…
COVID-19 Forum III – Introduction by Christos Lynteris
Thirty-eight days have passed since the publication of Somatosphere’s COVID-19 Forum II. In the course of these days the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 across the globe…
What Anthropology Teaches Us about COVID-19, Part 4: A Conversation with Physician-Anthropologist, Dr. Bjørn Westgard
Recently, I checked in with Dr. Bjørn Westgard, to see how he was doing. Back in the ‘90s, Bjørn was enrolled in a wildly demanding, combined M.D./Ph.D. program…
What Anthropology Teaches Us about COVID-19, Part 4: A Conversation with Physician-Anthropologist, Dr. Bjørn Westgard
Recently, I checked in with Dr. Bjørn Westgard, to see how he was doing. Back in the ‘90s, Bjørn was enrolled in a wildly demanding, combined M.D./Ph.D. program…
The Temporal Politics of Ethnography, Heritability, and Contagion in Tanzania During Covid-19
Editor’s note: This post is the fourth in our five-part series “COVID-19: Views from the Field.” Click here to read an introduction written by series organizer Rebekah Ciribassi.…
Ep #57 Narratives of Loss: Baptiste Brossard talks Alzheimer’s Disease & Social Dimensions of Ageing
The Familiar Strange · #57 Narratives Of Loss: Dr Brossard on Alzheimer’s, Looping Effects & Resuscitating Past Personhood “I’m giving mundane examples here, but it can be a…
Biosocial Medical Anthropology in the Time of Covid-19. New Challenges and Opportunities.
SAHRA GIBBON, LEWIS DALY, AARON PARKHURST, CARRIE RYAN, GUL DENIZ SALALI AND ALEX TASKER As the events of the past few months concerning the coronavirus have unfolded across…