In the current climate, rapid ethnographic assessments are the research method we need

Rapid responses in the social sciences require rapid research methods. In this Q&A, Thurka Sangaramoorthy and Karen Kroeger, authors of Rapid Ethnographic Assessments: A Practical Approach and Toolkit for Collaborative Community Research (Routledge 2020), discuss the benefits and limitations of rapid ethnographic assessments. Unlike traditional ethnographic research methods which are lengthy and resource intensive, REAs provide timely, low-cost data collection and dissemination that can produce rich understandings of social, economic and policy factors that contribute to the root causes of emerging situations in a variety of contexts

Teaching Ethnographic Methods for Cultural Anthropology: Current Practices and Needed Innovation

Historically, ethnographic methods were learned by cultural anthropology students in individual research projects. This approach creates challenges for teaching in ways that respond to the next generation’s calls to decenter anthropology’s White, heteropatriarchal voices and engage in collaborative community-based research. Analyzing syllabi from 107 ethnographic methods training courses from the United States, we find the tradition of the “lone researcher” persists and is the basis of ethnographic training for the next generation. There is little evidence of either active reflection or team-based pedagogy, both identified as necessary to meet career opportunities and diversification goals for the wider field of cultural anthropology. However, we also find that, by centering the completion of largely individual research projects, most ethnographic methods courses otherwise adhere to best practices in regard to experiential and active learning. Based on the analysis of syllabi in combination with current pedagogical literature, we suggest how cultural anthropologists can revise their ethnographic methods courses to incorporate pedagogy that promotes methodologies and skills to align with the needs of today’s students and communities

Landscapes of Care: Immigration and Health in Rural America

This insightful work on rural health in the United States examines the ways immigrants, mainly from Latin America and the Caribbean, navigate the health care system in the United States. Since 1990, immigration to the United States has risen sharply, and rural areas have seen the highest increases. Thurka Sangaramoorthy reveals that that the corporatization of health care delivery and immigration policies are deeply connected in rural America. Drawing from fieldwork that centers on Maryland's sparsely populated Eastern Shore, Sangaramoorthy shows how longstanding issues of precarity among rural health systems along with the exclusionary logics of immigration have mutually fashioned a "landscape of care" in which shared conditions of physical suffering and emotional anxiety among immigrants and rural residents generate powerful forms of regional vitality and social inclusion. Sangaramoorthy connects the Eastern Shore and its immigrant populations to many other places around the world that are struggling with the challenges of global migration, rural precarity, and health governance. Her extensive ethnographic and policy research shows the personal stories behind health inequity data and helps to give readers a human entry point into the enormous challenges of immigration and rural health.https://uncpress.org/book/9781469674179/landscapes-of-care

Chronicity, crisis, and the ‘end of AIDS’

In biomedical, public health, and popular discourses, the ‘end of AIDS’ has emerged as a predominant way to understand the future of HIV research and prevention. This approach is predicated on structuring and responding to HIV in ways that underscore its presumed lifelong nature. In this article, I examine the phenomenon of HIV chronicity that undergirds the ‘end of AIDS’ discourse. In particular, I explore how the logic of HIV chronicity, induced by technological advances in treatment and global financial and political investments, intensifies long-term uncertainty and prolonged crisis. Focusing on over 10 years of anthropological and public health research in the United States, I argue that HIV chronicity, and subsequently, the ‘end of AIDS’ discourse, obscure the on-going HIV crisis in particular global communities, especially among marginalised and ageing populations who live in under-resourced areas. By tracing the ‘end of AIDS’ discourse in my field sites and in other global locations, I describe how HIV chronicity signals a continuing global crisis and persistent social precarity rather than a ‘break’ with a hopeless past or a promising future free from AIDS

We all have AIDS: Circulations of Risk, Race, and Statistics in HIV/AIDS Treatment and Prevention

This dissertation is an ethnographic and epidemiological investigation of HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention. This research focuses on South Florida, and explores how global health and policy frameworks of HIV/AIDS affect the health and well being of transnational immigrants such as Haitians. It traces the circulation of knowledge about HIV/AIDS prevention from sites of surveillance and regulation to various clinics and hospitals to the social worlds of Haitian immigrants. Interviews with HIV/AIDS experts and public officials, as well as Haitian clients, demonstrate that global technicalities of disease prevention are inherently linked to individual practices and local politics of difference. Specifically, this project explores how the politics of difference permeates HIV/AIDS prevention in the United States. As discussions of the biological basis of race continue to gain traction in light of recent demographic changes and advances in genetic research, this research documents how medical, epidemiological, and social constructions of HIV/AIDS risk fuse notions of pathology with racial and cultural differences. It reveals that notions of individual responsibility in HIV/AIDS risk management often become inseparable from notions of racial, ethnic, and immigrant identities. It argues that HIV/AIDS surveillance practices help to reinforce categories of individual and collective difference, and sustain race and ethnicity as risk factors for HIV/AIDS. In addition, this project highlights the specific problems facing diverse immigrant and ethnic populations, and reveals that Haitians strategically identify with various institutions and diseases in order to access critical resources. Here, it illustrates that public understandings of health interventions are complex, and as a result, translations of HIV/AIDS prevention do not occur smoothly or as planned in Haitian communities. Finally, it argues for a re-envisioning of health disparities to emphasize their productive capacity in generating subjectivities, domestic and global policies, and scholarly research initiatives. This research posits that disparities in health, as realized in the socio-political and scientific realms in which they are engaged, are being made into everyday social instruments of action for securing funding, gaining political power, and obtaining forms of welfare benefits

Plagues, Pathogens, and Pedagogical Decolonization: Reflecting on the Design of a Decolonized Pandemic Syllabus

Funded by a Teaching Innovation Grant designed to transform traditional in-person courses into engaging and equitable online spaces, we designed the introductory anthropology course, Plagues, Pathogens, and Public Policy. The course is 15 weeks and is organized thematically around pressing topics and conversations concerning the social, political, and cultural dimensions of pandemics. While the COVID-19 global pandemic has intensified the pertinence of the course’s content, recent discourse on systemic racism and police brutality in the United States has also drawn renewed attention to the lack of inclusivity and accessibility within anthropological academia. Thus, with the design of this syllabus, we sought to decolonize our course content and pedagogy as a means of contributing to ongoing efforts towards inclusivity in academia. Our approach to a decolonized and inclusive syllabus included diversifying course content as well as constructing accessible language, assignments, and course policies. The following commentary outlines our goals for this endeavor and describes the process of creating this course. We detail our experiences with employing a decolonizing framework and present a guide for reading our completed syllabus so that we may encourage the development of more spaces where students can engage with and understand the benefits of decolonized scholarship.

Plagues, Pathogens, and Pedagogical Decolonization: Reflecting on the Design of a Decolonized Pandemic Syllabus

Funded by a Teaching Innovation Grant designed to transform traditional in-person courses into engaging and equitable online spaces, we designed the introductory anthropology course, Plagues, Pathogens, and Public Policy. The course is 15 weeks and is organized thematically around pressing topics and conversations concerning the social, political, and cultural dimensions of pandemics. While the COVID-19 global pandemic has intensified the pertinence of the course’s content, recent discourse on systemic racism and police brutality in the United States has also drawn renewed attention to the lack of inclusivity and accessibility within anthropological academia. Thus, with the design of this syllabus, we sought to decolonize our course content and pedagogy as a means of contributing to ongoing efforts towards inclusivity in academia. Our approach to a decolonized and inclusive syllabus included diversifying course content as well as constructing accessible language, assignments, and course policies. The following commentary outlines our goals for this endeavor and describes the process of creating this course. We detail our experiences with employing a decolonizing framework and present a guide for reading our completed syllabus so that we may encourage the development of more spaces where students can engage with and understand the benefits of decolonized scholarship.

Framing Environmental Health Decision-Making: The Struggle over Cumulative Impacts Policy

Little progress has been made to advance U.S. federal policy responses to growing scientific findings about cumulative environmental health impacts and risks, which also show that many low income and racial and ethnic minority populations bear a disproportionate share of multiple environmental burdens. Recent scholarship points to a “standard narrative” by which policy makers rationalize their slow efforts on environmental justice because of perceived lack of data and analytical tools. Using a social constructivist approach, ethnographic research methods, and content analysis, we examined the social context of policy challenges related to cumulative risks and impacts in the state of Maryland between 2014 and 2016. We identified three frames about cumulative impacts as a health issue through which conflicts over such policy reforms materialize and are sustained: (a) perceptions of evidence, (b) interpretations of social justice, and (c) expectations of authoritative bodies. Our findings illustrate that policy impasse over cumulative impacts is highly dependent on how policy-relevant actors come to frame issues around legislating cumulative impacts, rather than the “standard narrative” of external constraints. Frame analysis may provide us with more robust understandings of policy processes to address cumulative risks and impacts and the social forces that create health policy change.https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph1808394

Framing Environmental Health Decision-Making: The Struggle over Cumulative Impacts Policy

Little progress has been made to advance U.S. federal policy responses to growing scientific findings about cumulative environmental health impacts and risks, which also show that many low income and racial and ethnic minority populations bear a disproportionate share of multiple environmental burdens. Recent scholarship points to a “standard narrative” by which policy makers rationalize their slow efforts on environmental justice because of perceived lack of data and analytical tools. Using a social constructivist approach, ethnographic research methods, and content analysis, we examined the social context of policy challenges related to cumulative risks and impacts in the state of Maryland between 2014 and 2016. We identified three frames about cumulative impacts as a health issue through which conflicts over such policy reforms materialize and are sustained: (a) perceptions of evidence, (b) interpretations of social justice, and (c) expectations of authoritative bodies. Our findings illustrate that policy impasse over cumulative impacts is highly dependent on how policy-relevant actors come to frame issues around legislating cumulative impacts, rather than the “standard narrative” of external constraints. Frame analysis may provide us with more robust understandings of policy processes to address cumulative risks and impacts and the social forces that create health policy change