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Towards an Ethnography of Crisis Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2021-06-01 Francesca Morra
This article analyses the challenges posed by carrying out ethnography with migrants experiencing mental distress and living in conditions of multiple marginality (social and existential). Drawing on the notion of crisis, I consider the experience of disorder as an ethnographic object reflecting the intersection between the individual and the collective. This article examines how ethnographic practice
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Dancing with the Junta Again Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2021-06-01 A. A. (Myanmar Researcher),Liv S. Gaborit
Since the military coup on 1 February, more than 800 people, including children have been killed and more than 6,000 people have been arrested. The death toll and number of incarcerated women is sharply increasing during the crack down on protesters by security forces; yet, little is known about the specific challenges and opportunities encountered by women activists while imprisoned. Through analysis
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The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Reconfigurations of Domestic Space in Favelas Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Carolina Parreiras
This article aims to reflect on the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic changed how experiences of intimacy occur with a specific focus on the domestic relations of women living in favelas in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In contexts marked by precariousness and by the everyday difficulty of cohabitation in spaces that are characterised as small and with little infrastructure, the pandemic retraces
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Perverse Economies of Intimate and Personal Labour Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Pooja Satyogi
In India, the ‘unlock’ period has allowed some domestic workers to return to work; this comes amidst government advisories of greater risk of contagion generally. Drawing on ethnographic work with women domestic workers in the city of Delhi, the article delineates how formalities of social distancing and mask-wearing have begun to inflect personalised labour relationships in ways that entrench existing
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A World of Touch in a No-Touch Pandemic Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Cristina Douglas
Touch is essential when living with dementia for communication and remaining connected with the world, and it is also unavoidable when performing body care. Thus, it is impossible to think of living and caring for people with dementia in the absence of touch. Drawing from my ethnographic fieldwork conducted with therapy animals and people living with dementia in Scottish care facilities, in this article
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‘It’s Like Waking Up in the Library’ Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Brian McGahey
This article examines how lockdown measures have affected international students living in an international student dorm in Copenhagen. During the COVID-19 lockdown in Denmark from March to June, the dorm, which was previously considered a domestic space only, emerged as a closed circuit that collapsed into a single space living, work and leisure activities. The article shows that due to the lack of
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The Lockdown of Koti Intimacies Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Banhishikha Ghosh
This article considers the way the outbreak of coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown have egregiously impeded the intimate life practices of Kotis, people who possess a distinct gender-variant identity in India. The Kotis, who subsist mostly on begging or sex work through cross-dressing, counter the hegemonic heteronormative ‘bodyscape’ that fetishizes bodily differences and reinforces normative
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From Toilet Paper Wars to #ViralKindness? Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-12-01 Anne Décobert
By examining seemingly contradictory reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic and relating these to the basic income debate in Australia, this article explores the potential that the socio-economic crisis provoked by COVID-19 presents for a transformation of welfare systems. Drawing on ethnographic observation, the article describes the emergence of grassroots forms of solidarity in response to the pandemic
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The intimate borders of epidemiological nationalism Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-12-01 Bryonny Goodwin-Hawkins
Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, nation-states closed borders. Borders divide – and intimate difference. In this article, I trace an emergent epidemiological nationalism which intimates a contagious other, taking ‘the’ border as my (unstable) object. While post-war and post-wall European projects celebrate dismantling borders, bordering continually becomes by saturating space with territoriality. Illustrating
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Child Protection Social Work in COVID-19 Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-12-01 Sarah Pink,Harry Ferguson,Laura Kelly
This article brings together digital anthropology and social work scholarship to create an applied anthropology of everyday digital intimacy. Child protection social work involves home visits in the intimate spaces of others, where modes of sensorial and affective engagement combine with professional awareness and standards to constitute sensitive understandings of children’s well-being and family
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Lockdown Reflections on Freedom and Cultural Intimacy Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-12-01 Michael Herzfeld
In this article I address the role now being played by libertarian attacks on the enforcement of health regulations such as the wearing of masks. I suggest that a kind of cultural intimacy now emerging may take the form of guilty but willful complicity in a libertarian stance, not for reasons of social solidarity or collective freedom but for a NIMBY-like selfishness. That attitude constitutes a larger
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COVID-19 and the Transformation of Intimate Inter- and Intra-National Relations Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-12-01 Andrew Dawson
Based conceptually on Michael Herzfeld’s ideas of cultural intimacy and disemia, and empirically on lockdown auto-ethnography, this article considers how erstwhile intimate inter-and intra-national relations have been transformed by COVID-19. Its particular ethnographic focus is Australian–British post-colonial relations and the personal emergence of a hybrid Br-Australian consciousness.
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Intimacy with God and Coronavirus in Pakistan Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-12-01 Nadeem Malik
Intimacy with God is at the heart of Islamic practice through prayer. Intimacy with fellow congregants became central to the worship practices promoted by religious leaders during the holy month of Ramadan even when social distancing was required because of the pandemic. This was, by and large, an economic matter. Clerics and mosques rely significantly on the income generated through collective worship
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‘Everybody’s Always Here with Me!’ Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-12-01 Hannah McNeilly,Koreen M. Reece
Social distancing has been the central public health strategy for tackling the coronavirus pandemic worldwide. But the ‘Stay Home, Stay Safe’ order in the United Kingdom and the consequent closure of nurseries and schools also created an unprecedented degree of proximity within households. Based on interviews with mothers of young children in Scotland, this article provides early insight into the ways
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‘No Virus Is Stronger than Our Unity’ Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-12-01 Senem Kaptan
This article analyses how governments have sustained their relationship with their citizens amidst pandemic restrictions brought about by coronavirus through a focus on the acts of the Turkish government. Specifically, by looking at presidential letters addressed to the nation as well as the government’s fundraising campaign, I demonstrate how the Turkish state tried to manage a public health crisis
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Viral Intimacy and Catholic Nationalist Political Economy Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-12-01 David Whyte
Changes in the conduct and regulation of intimacy during the COVID-19 crisis in the Republic of Ireland has uncovered the legacy of Catholic nationalism in Irish capitalism. Many commentators analysed the increased welfarism and community service provision as the suspension of Irish neoliberalism. In fact, the Irish COVID-19 response is shaped by a longer tradition of political and economic approaches
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Islamic Biopolitics during Pandemics in Russia Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-12-01 Sofya A. Ragozina
In this article I discuss how the pandemic state of emergency has formed a subject field in Islamic biopolitics. By analysing the fatwas and official statements issued by Russian Muslim leaders between March and May 2020, I identify their discursive strategy of ‘interpreting’ the language of bureaucracy and medical terminology into the language of Islam, and of providing theological justification for
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Covidiots and the Clamour of the Virus-as-Question Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-06-01 Bryan Lim
Drawing on my experience with gay men in London who, despite COVID-19-related public health guidelines, continue to meet up and congregate so as to engage in a myriad of sexual (and non-sexual) practices, this article grapples with how an insistence on prepandemic intimacies of bodily interactions during a pandemic might prompt us to reconsider our relationship with biomedicine. While these covidiots’
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Familial Intimacy and the ‘Thing’ between Us Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-06-01 Andreas Streinzer,Almut Poppinga,Carolin Zieringer,Anna Wanka,Georg Marx
During the government-imposed contact restrictions in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, older adults feared that they may no longer be able to experience physical contact with family members. They were, however, given hope by a ‘cuddle curtain’, a device that promised to enable familial intimacy while blocking the exposure of older bodies to the coronavirus. Our research team traced how one such artefact
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Learning to Dwell with Micro-Organisms Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-06-01 Lydia Maria Arantes
In this article, I enquire in which ways the corona-induced lockdown in Austria has reshaped intimacy in our household by scrutinising my husband’s sourdough bread-making journey. As physical distancing has thrown us back onto ourselves, my field of research is equivalent to that which is immediately available – our everyday life within the confines of domestic space, at times expanded via digital
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Intimacy, Zoom Tango and the COVID-19 Pandemic Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-06-01 Jonathan Skinner
This is a personal reflection reacting and responding to the COVID-19 global pandemic and the domestication and on-lining of physical leisure pursuit. In Anthony Giddens’ The Transformation of Intimacy, there is the suggestion that the condition of the plastic is one ‘decentred’ and ‘freed from the needs of reproduction’. Giddens was writing generally about sexuality and the physical labour of reproduction
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Constructing the Not-So-New Normal Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-06-01 Dmitry Kurnosov,Anna Varfolomeeva
This article examines the early evidence for the emergence of new governmental regulations of intimacies during the COVID-19 pandemic based on the authors’ experience of hospital treatment in Russia. It discusses the increasingly used notion of ‘the new normal’ and its potential implications for citizen–state relations. Approaching these emerging regulations from both legal and anthropological perspectives
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Reflective Practitioners and Participant Observers in Autism Services Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-03-01 Joseph J. Long
Situated practice research offers rich possibilities for recognising and developing practitioner knowledge in social care. In this article, I document the application of anthropological methods and thinking within a research programme in autism services. Drawing on Donald Schön’s model of the reflective practitioner, I argue that participant observation, aimed at the holistic documentation of autism
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Publicly Funded Abortion and Marginalised People’s Experiences in Catalunya Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-03-01 Bayla Ostrach
Abortion law reforms enacted in Spain in 2010 and extended to Catalunya expanded access to abortion. Simultaneously, the autonomous region was affected by economic crisis and austerity, affecting access to care for migrant and marginalised populations. Mixed-method ethnographic data were collected in relation to low-income and immigrant women seeking abortion in two phases: (1) 2012–2013 and (2) early
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Fusion and Reform Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2020-03-01 Harvey Whitehouse, Robin Fitzgerald
Recent theoretical advances in anthropology and group psychology suggest that sharing self-defi ning experiences creates identity fusion, a powerful form of social glue motivating prosocial action. Here, we present results of in-depth interviews with a sample of 31 inmates of an Australian prison and explore the theoretical implications of this work for interventions designed to reduce recidivism amongst
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Food Knowledge and Migrant Families in Argentina Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2019-12-01 Mora Castro,Giorgina Fabron
This article presents an analysis of different aspects of the migration process of a large group of people in Argentina, who originally come from the rural uplands (Jujuy Province) but who currently dwell in a lowlands peri-urban area (Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area). In particular, it presents some of the results of a long-term research project on food practices deployed in both geographical zones
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Ethical Dilemmas and Moral Conundrums Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2019-12-01 Jocelyn D. Avery
Many anthropologists will be required to gain ethics approval in order to begin their research. Prior to commencing, though, it is not always possible to predict what will happen in the field, or how you as the researcher will react, much less to incorporate all possible safeguards in an ethics application. My research was conducted at a special education needs college with the aim of discovering the
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Learning in Collaborative Moments Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2019-12-01 Silke Hoppe, Laura Vermeulen, Annelieke Driessen, Els Roding, Marije de Groot, Kristine Krause
In this article, we describe experiences with dialogue evenings within a research collaboration on long-term care and dementia in the Netherlands. What started as a conventional process of ‘reporting back’ to interlocutors transformed over the course of two years into learning and knowing together. We argue that learning took place in three different articulations. First, participants learnt to expand
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Applied Anthropology in Juridical Grey Spaces Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2019-06-01 Amanda J. Reinke
Informal justice refers to those legal practices that are traditionally outside the purview of formal law and legal systems. Since the advent of widespread social critique in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s, informal justice models have become increasingly popular and implemented in communities and within the legal system itself. The existence of informal justice mechanisms alongside and
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Being a Community Health Worker Means Advocating Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2019-06-01 Ryan I. Logan
Community health workers (CHWs) participate in advocacy as a crucial means to empower clients in overcoming health disparities and to improve the health and social well-being of their communities. Building on previous studies, this article proposes a new framework for conceptualising CHW advocacy, depending on the intended impact level of CHW advocacy. CHWs participate in three ‘levels’ of advocacy
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Putting Anthropology into Global Health Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2019-03-01 Jorge Varanda, Josenando Théophile
This analysis of over a century of public health campaigns against human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) in Angola aims to unravel the role of (utopian) dreams in global health. A ention to the emergence and use of concepts such as neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and ideas about elimination or eradication highlights how these concepts and utopian dreams are instrumental for the advancement
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Introduction Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2019-03-01 Rodney Reynolds, Isabelle L. Lange
Since the turn of the millennium, conceptual and practice-oriented shi s in global health have increasingly given emphasis to health indicator production over research and interventions that emerge out of local social practices, environments and concerns. In this special issue of Anthropology in Action, we ask whether such globalised contexts allow for, recognise and suffi ciently value the research
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Global Health Research, Anthropology and Realist Enquiry Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2019-03-01 Sara Van Belle
In this article, I set out to capture the dynamics of two streams within the fi eld of global health research: realist research and medical anthropology. I critically discuss the development of methodology and practice in realist health research in lowand middle-income countries against the background of anthropological practice in global health to make claims on why realist enquiry has taken a high
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Envisioning, Evaluating and Co-Enacting Performance in Global Health Interventions Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2019-03-01 Diane Duclos, Sylvain L. Faye, Tidiane Ndoye, Loveday Penn-Kekana
The notion of performance has become dominant in health programming, whether being embodied through pay-for-performance schemes or through other incentive-based interventions. In this article, we seek to unpack the idea of performance and performing in a dialogical fashion between field-based evaluation findings and methodological considerations. We draw on episodes where methodological reflections
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‘I’m Not that Kind of Doctor’ Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2019-03-01 Erica Nelson
Within multi-disciplinary global health interventions, anthropologists fi nd themselves navigating complex relationships of power. In this article, I off er a critical refl ection on this negotiated terrain, drawing on my experience as an embedded ethnographer in a four-year adolescent sexual and reproductive health research intervention in Latin America. I critique the notion that the transformative
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Anthropologists and Designers Co-Designing the Future Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2018-12-01 Laura Korčulanin,Verónica Reyero Meal
During the last weekend of October 2018, specialistsfrom around the world met in Lisbon for the sixth‘Why the World Needs Anthropologists’ symposium(WWNA). This yearly conference – which providesa space for sharing information, experiences anddiscussions regarding applied anthropology – hasgone from a one-afternoon symposium to a three-dayevent with lectures, panel discussions, speed-talks,workshops
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Coming Together in the So-Called Refugee Crisis Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2018-12-01 Nasima Selim, Mustafa Abdalla, Lilas Alloulou, Mohamed Alaedden Halli, Seth M. Holmes, Maria Ibiß, Gabi Jaschke, Johanna Gonçalves Martín
Author(s): Selim, Nasima; Abdalla, Mustafa; Alloulou, Lilas; Halli, Mohamed Alaedden; Holmes, Seth M; Ibis, Maria; Jaschke, Gabi; Martin, Johanna Goncalves | Abstract: In 2015, Germany entered what would later become known as the ‘refugee crisis’. The Willkommenskultur (welcoming culture) trope gained political prominence and met with significant challenges. In this article, we focus on a series of
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The Household in Flux Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2018-12-01 Kelly A. Yotebieng, Tannya Forcone
The household is a ubiquitous unit of analysis across the social sciences. In policy, research and practice, households are o en considered a link between individuals and the structures that they interact with on a daily basis. Yet, researchers o en take the household for granted as something that means the same thing to everyone across contexts. As the household has never truly been a static unit
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Participation, Process and Partnerships Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2018-12-01 Carrie Furman, Wendy-Lin Bartels, Jessica Bolson
As awareness of the potential threats posed by climate change increases, researchers and agricultural advisors are being called upon to determine the risks that diff erent stakeholder groups will likely confront and to develop adaptive strategies. Yet, engaging with stakeholders takes time. It also requires a clear and detailed plan to ensure that research and outreach activities yield useful outputs
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Ageing and Dying Radically Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2018-12-01 Andrew Dawson
This biographical and, in part, phenomenological anthropology of older people in post-industrial England illuminates a local and generationally specifi c communitarian critique of and form of resistance against the process of individualisation. Rather than presenting communitarianism conventionally as an abstract political ideology or set of ideas about locality, it is conceptualised as emerging from
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Too Little, Too Late? Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2018-06-01 Lilian Milanés, Joanna Mishtal
Scholarship and advocacy work regarding reproductive health have o en focused on women’s experiences. Concerns about men’s sexual and reproductive healthcare (SRH) have historically been on the margins in this context. In the United States, young men are at the greatest risk for sexually transmi ed infections (STIs), yet are the least likely to seek SRH. Based on research with 18 healthcare providers
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Sprinkles and Spacing Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2018-06-01 Bronwen Gillespie
This article explores women’s reactions to public health nutrition work in Guatemala, looking specifi cally at multi-micronutrients, or sprinkles. This anthropological research was carried out in two rural communities in Chiquimula, one of which was in the Maya Ch’orti’ region, during the 2017 seasonal period of scarcity. Taking as a starting point the limitations of a medicalised approach to malnutrition
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‘Is Anthropology Legal?’ Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2018-06-01 Cassandra Yuill
In May 2018, the European Union (EU) introduced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with the aim of increasing transparency in data processing and enhancing the rights of data subjects. Within anthropology, concerns have been raised about how the new legislation will affect ethnographic fieldwork and whether the laws contradict the discipline’s core tenets. To address these questions, the
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Community–University Health Research Partnerships Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2018-06-01 Janet Page-Reeves, Lidia Regino
In recent years, there have been positive changes to the health research landscape, with increasing interest amongst community organisations and university investigators in establishing research partnerships and with more funding opportunities for communityengaged work. However, creating a community–university partnership requires new skills, new types of knowledge, and new ways of creating and maintaining
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The President’s Mother the Anthropologist and the Anthropologist’s Son Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2018-03-01 David Lempert
AbstractBarack Obama was the first son of a PhD anthropologist to serve as President of the United States, and some popular press linked his political views and actions, which were allegedly in violation of international law, to failures in American anthropology to uphold international law as well as to personal failures by anthropologists to transmit the professional ethics of the discipline to their
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The Development of Ethnographic Drama to Support Healthcare Professionals Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2018-03-01 Lisen Dellenborg, Margret Lepp
This article describes the development of ethnographic drama in an action research project involving healthcare professionals in a Swedish medical ward. Ethnographic drama is the result of collaboration between anthropology and drama. As a method, it is suited to illuminating, addressing and studying professional relationships and organisational cultures. It can help healthcare professionals cope with
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Editorial Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2018-03-01 Christine McCourt
We are delighted to announce that Anthropology in Action (AiA) will be published as an open access journal as of 2018. Thanks to the generous support that we have received from a global network of libraries as part of the Knowledge Unlatched Select programme, there are no submission charges or article-processing charges (APCs) for authors of articles published under this arrangement. The initial funding
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Silence and Visual Representations of Anti-Violence Campaigns in Cosmopolitan Brisbane Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2018-03-01 Victor Igreja
In spite of the growing public focus on domestic violence (DV) in mainstream Australian society, ethnographers have remained aloof from analysing this problem. In an ethnographic study in the Brisbane region, I analysed people’s perceptions of anti-violence images that were part of a public campaign and assessed the appropriateness of the images’ locations. Occasionally, my interlocutors unexpectedly
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The Value of Anthropology in Child Health Policy Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2018-03-01 Julie Spray
Working at the nexus of medical anthropology and the anthropology of childhood, this article challenges three assumptions oft en embedded in child health policy: (1) children are the passive recipients of healthcare; (2) children’s knowledge of illness and their body can be assumed based on adult understandings; and (3) children’s healthcare can be isolated from their social relations. I explore these
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The GIPA Concept ‘Lost in Transition’ Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2017-12-01 Thandeka Dlamini-Simelane
Following the call by UNAIDS in 2006 to involve people living with HIV (PLHIV) in treatment programmes, expert clients were recruited to provide services within healthcare settings as volunteers alongside paid health workers. Swazi law requires employment contracts for anyone working in a full-time capacity for three months, complicating the status of expert clients. This article traces the genesis
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Activist Anthropology with the Haudenosaunee Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2017-12-01 Brooke Hansen, Jack Rossen
As participants in the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign, we explore our experiences as allies and activist anthropologists in a collaborative venture that involved participants from Native nations, academia and local communities. The campaign included local, regional and international events aimed at re-enlivening a 400-year-old treaty espousing mutual respect and balance between Europeans and the Haudenosaunee
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Speaking Back, Striking Back Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2017-12-01 Eugenie Reidy
This article explores local agency in development anthropology, a prominent form of applied anthropology that has encouraged refl ection on the practice of anthropology itself (Mosse 2013). Drawing on specifi c fi eldwork experiences from time the author spent working for the United Nations and international NGOs in East Africa, it discusses several complexities and moral questions that arose. In particular
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Now You See Me, Now You Don’t Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2017-12-01 Jonathan Ventura, Wendy Gunn
The body as an anthropological nexus of sociocultural norms and conventions has been discussed at length in the humanities and social sciences. However, within the worlds of industrial design, an important player influencing an understanding of the body within a design process has been neglected and that is the industrial designer. Our main thesis considers designing as an anthropological, sociocultural
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Development, Well-being and Perceptions of the ‘Expert’ in Ladakh, North-West India Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2017-12-01 Andrea Butcher
The research for this article was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the Fredrick Williamson Memorial Fund. I would like to thank the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council and Leh’s NGOs, who generously shared their time and information with me. Thanks also to the TATA Institute of Social Science and for allowing me to observe Micro-Level Planning workshops in 2010 and for
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‘Yassaba’ or the Fear of Being Abandoned Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2017-06-01 Maria Cristina Manca
AbstractHealth promotion is dependent upon sharing information with local populations and adapting health-care services to make them more acceptable, and is an essential part of any Ebola intervention. Listening to the concerns of local communities and engaging them as active participants ensures that health promotion messages are relevant, acceptable and understandable as well as culturally appropriate
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Engaging Anthropology in an Ebola Outbreak: Case Studies from West Africa Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2017-06-01 Emilie Venables, Umberto Pellecchia
The articles in this special issue demonstrate, through ethnographic fi eldwork and observations, how anthropologists and the methodological tools of their discipline became a means of understanding the Ebola outbreak in West Africa during 2014 and 2015. The examples, from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, show how anthropologists were involved in the Ebola outbreak at diff erent points during the
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‘Atomic Bombs’ in Monrovia, Liberia: The Identity and Stigmatisation of Ebola Survivors Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2017-06-01 Emilie Venables
Survivors of the Ebola virus have been widely profi led as the success stories of the outbreak, yet they still face challenges relating to their identity and reintegration. A survivor’s body takes on new meanings aft er experiencing Ebola, and the label ‘survivor’ is as problematic as it is celebratory. Using data conducted during fi eldwork in Monrovia, Liberia, this article discusses the complex
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Quarantine and Its Malcontents: How Liberians Responded to the Ebola Epidemic Containment Measures Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2017-06-01 Umberto Pellecchia
This article examines how populations aff ected by the Ebola epidemic in Liberia reacted to the implementation of mandatory, state-imposed quarantine as a way of curtailing transmission. The ethnography, based on in-depth fi eldwork in both urban and rural areas, shows how mandatory quarantine caused severe social consequences for both people’s perceptions of epidemic control and their health-seeking
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Noisy Lives, Noisy Bodies Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2017-03-01 Camilla Hoffmann Merrild, Peter Vedsted, Rikke Sand Andersen
Social inequality in cancer survival is well known, and within public health promotion enhancing awareness of cancer symptoms is oft en promoted as a way to reduce social diff erences in stage of cancer at the time of diagnosis. In order to add to our knowledge of what may lie behind social inequalities in cancer survival encountered in many high-income countries, this article explores the situatedness
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Social Sensations of Symptoms Anthropology in Action Pub Date : 2017-03-01 Lotte Meinert, Susan Reynolds Whyte
The interpretation of sensations and the recognition of symptoms of a sickness, as well as the movement to seek treatment, have long been recognised in medical anthropology as inherently social processes. Based on cases of HIV and trauma (PTSD) in Uganda, we show that even the fi rst signs and sensations of sickness can be radically social. The sensing body can be a ‘social body’ – a family, a couple