Monday, September 28, 2009

Let's get going on this blog.....

It was just this past Saturday, the 26th of September, that we held the panel titled “Critical Medical Ethnography that Matters.” The panel was part of the Society for Medical Anthropology’s stand-alone conference that featured pretty amazing plenary speakers as well as some powerful break-out sessions over a three day period. The opening event, held last Thursday evening, featured Paul Farmer as the keynote speaker. He was mobbed afterwards by students from Yale and elsewhere (this was a very well-attended international conference)!

Over the next days of the conference, I was thrilled to hear plenary talks on the past and future of medical anthropology, including that by Didier Fassin, Merrill Singer (awesome!) and Gelya Frank (who helped me see connections between different domains of my own work—teaching, writing, research—that I had never recognized before).

And then we had our panel: Critical Medical Ethnography that Matters. I think it went really well (!)—the presentations were thoughtful, moving, inspiring, and the questions afterwards generated a good discussion…..conversations to be continued here, I hope.

So here’s the dilemma as I write this post. How do we extend the conversation/discussion on this blog?

I’m thinking we need a summary of the presentations/talks (or short excerpt from?) to remind those who were there what was actually said and what we talked about, and to provide a basis for further discussion. I suppose I need to write to participants about how we might be able to do that.

That reminds me: does anyone know how to post a word document or PowerPoint onto a blog that is not a web link???

I suppose we can also start talking about some of the issues raised by participants, including how, as anthropologists work with others (physicians; other social scientists, etc) as part of larger projects, to move ethnography from the margins? There were also questions about dealing with IRB (folks offered useful suggestions, including getting an anthropologist on your university’s IRB panel). A useful resource for IRB issues are Rena Lederman’s pieces in the November 2006 issue of American Ethnologist (Volume 33, Issue 4) that can be found on AnthroSource.

And of course, folks can start writing about an issue related to Critical Medical Ethnography that matters to them……

By the way, I've added a few more links--there's the NGO Code of Conduct, HAI, PIH, and Hispanic Health Council. There's plenty of room for more links.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Panel Abstract:SMA Conference September 26, 2009

Ethnography that Matters: Case Studies in Critical Medical Anthropology
co-organized by Alisse Waterston, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY
Arachu Castro, Harvard University

Participants
Sienna Craig, Dartmouth College
Arachu Castro, Harvard University
M. Catherine Maternowska, University of California, San Francisco and the International Centre for Reproductive Health-Kenya and Thomas McHale, Harvard University
James Pfeiffer, University of Washington
Discussant
Alisse Waterston, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY

Session Abstract
Participants on this panel take a Critical Medical Anthropology (CMA; Baer, Singer and Susser 2003; Castro and Singer 2004) approach to understanding health, disease, illness experience and health care policies and practices in an unequal world. Their work emphasizes the importance of political and economic forces, including the complexities of power relations and social exclusion, on what they see on the ground, in the local settings where they conduct critical medical ethnographic research in resource-poor areas and/or among vulnerable populations. Informed by this perspective, each contributor offers a case study from her/his own ethnographic project, taking us from theoretical framework to research design and findings to actual or potential application on-the-ground with a particular focus on women’s health. Challenging unfounded claims that critical medical ethnography can document but not address disparities, the projects described here demonstrate the ways in which ethnography can be operationalized towards improving the delivery and quality of care, and moving towards more equitable and just systems. To help facilitate dialogue, this session will be structured as follows: introductory remarks by discussant; presentation of 4 case studies; discussant comments; and audience participation (Q&A).