Medical Anthropology Journal Club Archives
All interested faculty and graduate students are invited to participate in the medical anthropology journal club. The purpose is to create a forum for discussing and critically evaluating recent literature related to medical anthropology. Typically, one volunteer will select an article and lead a discussion at each meeting.
Articles will be available in PDF form on this website at least one week in advance. If you are interested in participating, please contact me to request a password for access to the articles.
The journal club schedule for the current semester is available here. Below you can find an archive of past semesters’ schedules
Spring 2010
January 8
Trenholm, J. E., Olsson, P., & Ahlberg, B. M. (2009). Battles on women’s bodies: War, rape and traumatisation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Global Public Health, in press.
Moderator: Nikki D’Errico
January 15
Shariff-Marco, S., Gee, G. C., Breen, N., Willis, G., Reeve, B. B., Grant, D. et al. (2009). A mixed-methods approach to developing a self-reported racial/ethnic discrimination measure for use in multiethnic health surveys. Ethnicity & Disease, 19(4), 447-453.
Moderator: Douglas Monroe
January 22
Joint session with African American Studies Brownbag Series: “Turn up the HEAT: Building a community academic partnership for health equity,” Lance Gravlee
January 29
Weaver, L. J., & Hadley, C. (2009). Moving beyond hunger and nutrition: A systematic review of the evidence linking food insecurity and mental health in developing countries. Ecology of Food and Nutrition, 48(4), 263-284.
Moderator: Peter Collings
February 5
Pike, I. L., Straight, B., Oesterle, M., Hilton, C., & Lanyasunya, A. (2010). Documenting the health consequences of endemic warfare in three pastoralist communities of northern Kenya: A conceptual framework. Social Science & Medicine, 70(1), 45-52.
Moderator: Alyson Young
February 12
Castel, P. (2009). What’s behind a guideline?: Authority, competition and collaboration in the French oncology sector. Social Studies of Science, 39(5), 743-764.
Moderator: Noelle Sullivan
February 19
Brown, R. A., Hruschka, D. J., & Worthman, C. M. (2009). Cultural models and fertility timing among Cherokee and White youth in Appalachia: Beyond the mode. American Anthropologist, 111(4), 420-431.
Moderator: Lance Gravlee
February 26
Jemmott, J. B., Jemmott, L. S., & Fong, G. T. (2010). Efficacy of a theory-based abstinence-only intervention over 24 months: a randomized controlled trial with young adolescents. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 164(2), 152-159.
Moderator: Douglas Monroe
March 5
Sellstrom, E., & Bremberg, S. (2006). The significance of neighbourhood context to child and adolescent health and well-being: A systematic review of multilevel studies. Scandanavian Journal of Public Health, 34(5), 544-554.
Moderator: Peter Collings and Fredrik Lindencrona
March 12
No journal club—Spring Break
March 19
Kaptchuk, T. J., Shaw, J., Kerr, C. E., Conboy, L. A., Kelley, J. M., Csordas, T. J. et al. (2009). “Maybe I made up the whole thing”: Placebos and patients’ experiences in a randomized controlled trial. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry, 33(3), 382-411.
Moderator: TBD
March 26
No journal club—Society for Applied Anthropology Meetings (Mérida, Mexico)
April 2
Kubzansky, L. D., & Adler, G. K. (2010). Aldosterone: a forgotten mediator of the relationship between psychological stress and heart disease. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 34(1), 80-86.
Moderator: Amy Non
April 9
Whyte, S. R. (2009). Health identities and subjectivities: The ethnographic challenge. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 23(1), 6-15.
Moderator: Noelle Sullivan
April 16
No journal club—American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting
April 23
Grayman, J. H., Good, M.-J. D., & Good, B. J. (2009). Conflict nightmares and trauma in Aceh. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry, 33(2), 290-312.
Fall 2009
August 28
Fast, D., Shoveller, J., Shannon, K., & Kerr, T. (2009). Safety and danger in downtown Vancouver: Understandings of place among young people entrenched in an urban drug scene. Health & Place, in press.
Moderator: Lance Gravlee
September 4
Maman, S., Cathcart, R., Burkhardt, G., Omba, S., & Behets, F. (2009). The role of religion in HIV-positive women’s disclosure experiences and coping strategies in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Social Science & Medicine, 68(5), 965-970.
Moderator: Nikki D’Errico
September 11
Wendland, C. L. (2008). Research, therapy, and bioethical hegemony: the controversy over perinatal AZT trials in Africa. African Studies Review, 51(3), 1-23.
Moderator: Noelle Sullivan
September 18
Tsai, H., Yu, Y., Zhang, S., Pearson, C., Ortiz, K., Xu, X. et al. (2009). Association of genetic ancestry with preterm delivery and related traits among African American mothers. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 201(1), 94.e1-94.e10.
Moderator: Amy Non
September 25
Conversation with the authors: Suzanne Maman and Frieda Behets
October 2
Hollos, M., & Larsen, U. (2008). Motherhood in sub-Saharan Africa: The social consequences of infertility in an urban population in northern Tanzania. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 10(2), 159-173.
Moderator: Suzanne Dolwick Grieb
October 9
Tucker, J. S., Kennedy, D., Ryan, G., Wenzel, S. L., Golinelli, D., & Zazzali, J. (2009). Homeless women’s personal networks: Implications for understanding risk behavior. Human Organization, 68(2), 129-140.
Moderator: Kathryn Ranhorn
October 16
No journal club—Homecoming
October 23
Zhou, H., Watanabe, C., & Ohtsuka, R. (2007). Impacts of dietary intake and helminth infection on diversity in growth among schoolchildren in rural south China: A four-year longitudinal study. American Journal of Human Biology, 19(1), 96-106.
Moderator: Dawit Woldu
October 30
Hampshire, K. R., Panter-Brick, C., Kilpatrick, K., & Casiday, R. E. (2009). Saving lives, preserving livelihoods: Understanding risk, decision-making and child health in a food crisis. Social Science & Medicine, 68(4), 758-765.
Moderator: Alyson Young
November 6
Snodgrass, J. G., Lacy, M. G., Sharma, S. K., Jhala, Y. S., Advani, M., Bhargava, N. K. et al. (2008). Witch hunts, herbal healing, and discourses of indigenous ecodevelopment in North India: Theory and method in the anthropology of environmentality. American Anthropologist, 110(3), 299-312.
Moderator: Jai Hale-Gallardo
November 13
McGarvey, S. T. (2009). Interdisciplinary translational research in anthropology, nutrition, and public health. Annual Review of Anthropology, 38, 233-249.
Moderator: Tamar Carter
November 20
Gravlee, C. C., Non, A. L., & Mulligan, C. J. (2009). Genetic ancestry, social classification, and racial inequalities in blood pressure in southeastern Puerto Rico. PLoS ONE, 4(9), e6821.
Moderator: Aida Miro
November 27
No journal club—Thanksgiving
December 4
No journal club—American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting
Spring 2009
January 9
Dressler, W. W. (2007). Meaning and structure in research in medical anthropology. Anthropology in Action, 14(3), 30-43.
Moderator: Lance Gravlee
January 16
Hadley, C., Tegegn, A., Tessema, F., Cowan, J., Asefa, M., & Galea, S. (2008). Food insecurity, stressful life events and symptoms of anxiety and depression in East Africa: evidence from the Gilgel Gibe Growth and Development Study. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 62(11), 980-986.
Moderator: Alyson Young
January 23
Becares, L., Nazroo, J., & Stafford, M. (2009). The buffering effects of ethnic density on experienced racism and health. Health & Place. In press.
Moderator: Douglas Monroe
January 30
Keenan, S. (2008). Listening to pregnancy dreams: Towards a Jungian Inner Map of pregnancy, lactation, weaning and post-weaning. Women and Birth, 21(3), 127-132.
Moderator: Nikki D’Errico
February 6
Panter-Brick, C., Eggerman, M., Mojadidi, A., & Mcdade, T. W. (2008). Social stressors, mental health, and physiological stress in an urban elite of young Afghans in Kabul. American Journal of Human Biology, 20, 627-641.
Moderator: Brian Tyler
February 13
Menon, R., Velez, D., Morgan, N., Lombardi, S., Fortunato, S., & Williams, S. (2008). Genetic regulation of amniotic fluid TNF-alpha and soluble TNF receptor concentrations affected by race and preterm birth. Human Genetics, 124(3), 243-253.
Moderator: Amy Non
February 20
Kuzawa, C. W., & Sweet, E. (2009). Epigenetics and the embodiment of race: Developmental origins of US racial disparities in cardiovascular health. American Journal of Human Biology, 21(1), 2-15.
Jasienska, G. (2009). Low birth weight of contemporary African Americans: An intergenerational effect of slavery? American Journal of Human Biology, 21(1), 16-24.
Moderator: Nikki D’Errico
February 27
Tawfik, L., & Watkins, S. C. (2007). Sex in Geneva, sex in Lilongwe, and sex in Balaka. Social Science & Medicine, 64(5), 1090-1101.
Moderator: Meredith Marten
March 6
Krieger, N., Chen, J. T., Waterman, P. D., Hartman, C., Stoddard, A. M., Quinn, M. et al. (2008). The inverse hazard law: Blood pressure, sexual harassment, racial discrimination, workplace abuse and occupational exposures in US low-income black, white and Latino workers. Social Science & Medicine, 67(12), 1970-1981.
Moderator: Lance Gravlee
March 13
No journal club—Spring Break
March 20
No journal club—Society for Applied Anthropology, Santa Fe, NM
March 27
Crate, S. A. (2008). Gone the bull of winter? Grappling with the cultural implications of and anthropology’s role(s) in global climate change. Current Anthropology, 49(4), 569-595.
Moderator: Peter Collings
April 3
Kohrt, B. A., & Harper, I. (2008). Navigating diagnoses: Understanding mind–body relations, mental health, and stigma in Nepal. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry, 32(4), 462-491.
Moderator: Brian Tyler
April 10
Briggs, C. L., & Mantini-Briggs, C. (2009). Confronting health disparities: Latin American social medicine in Venezuela. American Journal of Public Health, 99(3), 549.
Moderator: Alan Schultz
April 17
Wutich, A., & Ragsdale, K. (2008). Water insecurity and emotional distress: Coping with supply, access, and seasonal variability of water in a Bolivian squatter settlement. Social Science & Medicine, 67(12), 2116-2125.
Moderator: Lance Gravlee
April 24
Pescosolido, B. A., Perry, B. L., Long, J. S., Martin, J. K., Nurnberger Jr., J., & Hesselbrock, V. (2008). Under the influence of genetics: How transdisciplinarity leads us to rethink social pathways to illness. American Journal of Sociology, 114(S1), S171-S201.
Moderator: Amy Non
Fall 2008
August 29
Warner, F. R. (2007). Social Support and Distress among Q’eqchi’ Refugee Women in Maya Tecun, Mexico. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 21(2), 193-217.
Moderator: Brian Tyler
September 5
Sorensen, M. V., Snodgrass, J. J., Leonard, W. R., Mcdade, T. W., Tarskaya, L. A., Ivanov, K. I. et al. (2008). Lifestyle incongruity, stress and immune function in indigenous Siberians: The health impacts of rapid social and economic change. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, in press.
Moderator: Lance Gravlee
September 12
Thomas, Felicity. 2008. Indigenous narratives of HIV/AIDS: Morality and blame in a time of change. Medical Anthropology 27 (3): 227-56.
Moderator: Alan Schultz
September 19
Nyamanga, P., C. Suda, and J. Aagaard-Hansen. 2006. Similarities between human and livestock illnesses among the Luo in Western Kenya. Anthropology & Medicine 13 (1): 13-24.
Mathias, E. 2007. Ethnoveterinary medicine in the era of evidence-based medicine: Mumbo-jumbo, or a valuable resource? The Veterinary Journal 173 (2): 241-42.
Moderator: Alyson Young
September 26
Goldberg, T. L., Gillespie, T. R., Rwego, I. B., & Estoff, E. L. (2008). Forest fragmentation as cause of bacterial transmission among nonhuman primates, humans, and livestock, Uganda. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 14(9), 1375-1382.
Moderator: Eric Kightley
October 3
Mayhew, M., Hansen, P. M., Peters, D. H., Edward, A., Singh, L. P., Dwivedi, V. et al. (2008). Determinants of skilled birth attendant utilization in Afghanistan: A cross-sectional study. American Journal of Public Health, 98(10), 1849.
Moderator: Nikki D’Errico
October 10
Jones, K. E., Patel, N. G., Levy, M. A., Storeygard, A., Balk, D., Gittleman, J. L. et al. (2008). Global trends in emerging infectious diseases. Nature, 451(7181), 990-993.
Moderator: Eric Kightley
October 17
Béhague, D. P., Gonçalves, H., & Victora, C. G. (2008). Anthropology and epidemiology: learning epistemological lessons through a collaborative venture. Ciência & Saúde Coletiva, 13(6), 1701-1710.
Moderator: Douglas Monroe
October 24
No journal club — University closed for homecoming
October 31
Foley, E. E. (2008). Neoliberal reform and health dilemmas. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 22(3), 257-273.
Moderator: Alyson Young
November 7
Seeley, J., Biraro, S., Shafer, L. A., Nasirumbi, P., Foster, S., Whitworth, J. et al. (2008). Using in-depth qualitative data to enhance our understanding of quantitative results regarding the impact of HIV and AIDS on households in rural Uganda. Social Science & Medicine, 67(9), 1434-1446.
Moderator: Meredith Marten
November 14
Trostle, J. A., Hubbard, A., Scott, J., Cevallos, W., Bates, S. J., & Eisenberg, J. N. S. (2008). Raising the level of analysis of food-borne outbreaks: Food-sharing networks in rural coastal Ecuador. Epidemiology, 19(3), 384-390.
Moderator: Peter Collings
November 21
No journal club (AAA meetings, San Francisco)
November 28
No journal club (Thanksgiving)
December 5
Pickett, K. E. & Wilkinson, R. G. (2008). People like us: ethnic group density effects on health. Ethnicity & Health, 13(4), 321-334.
Moderator: Lance Gravlee
December 12
Phinney, H. (2008). "Rice is essential but tiresome; you should get some noodles": Doi moi and the political economy of men’s extramarital sexual relations and marital HIV risk in Hanoi, Vietnam. American Journal of Public Health, 98(4), 650-660.
Mills, S. (2008). The political economy of men’s HIV risk in Vietnam and intervention choices. American Journal of Public Health, 98(10), 1734-1735.
Moderator: Alan Schultz
Spring 2008
January 18
Lorway, R. (2006). Dispelling "heterosexual African AIDS" in Namibia: Same-sex sexuality in the township of Katutura. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 8(5), 435-449.
Moderator: Lance Gravlee
January 25
Trnka, S. (2007). Languages of labor: negotiating the real and the relational in Indo-Fijian women’s expressions of physical pain. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 21(4), 388-408.
Moderator: Erica Gibson
February 1
Gersten, O. (2008). Neuroendocrine biomarkers, social relations, and the cumulative costs of stress in Taiwan. Social Science & Medicine, 66(3), 507-519.
McDade, T. W. (2008). Challenges and opportunities for integrative health research in the context of culture: A commentary on Gersten. Social Science & Medicine, 66(3), 520-524.
Moderator: Brian Tyler
February 8
McDade, T. W., Reyes-Garcia, V., Blackinton, P., Tanner, S., Huanca, T., & Leonard, W. R. (2007). Ethnobotanical knowledge is associated with indices of child health in the Bolivian Amazon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(15), 6134-6139.
Moderator: Eric Kightley
February 15
Kirmayer, L. J. & Sartorius, N. (2007). Cultural models and somatic syndromes. Psychosomatic Medicine, 69(9), 832-840.
Moderator: Brian Tyler
February 22
Williams, R. B., et al. (2008). Childhood socioeconomic status and serotonin transporter gene polymorphism enhance cardiovascular reactivity to mental stress. Psychosomatic Medicine, 70(1), 32-39.
Moderator: Amy Non
February 29
Snipes, S., Thompson, B., O’Connor, K., Godina, R., & Ibarra, G. (2007). Anthropological and psychological merge: Design of a stress measure for Mexican farmworkers. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 31(3), 359-388.
Moderator: Lance Gravlee
March 7
Izquierdo, C. & Johnson, A. (2007). Desire, envy and punishment: A Matsigenka emotion schema in illness narratives and folk stories. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 31(4), 419-444.
Moderator: Brian Tyler
March 14
No journal club (Spring Break)
March 21
Pylypa, J. (2007). Healing herbs and dangerous doctors: “Fruit fever” and community conflicts with biomedical care in Northeast Thailand. Medical Anthropological Quarterly, 21(4), 349-368.
Moderator: Eric Kightley
March 28
No journal club (SfAA/SMA Meetings)
April 4
Cheyney, M. J. (2008). Homebirth as systems-challenging praxis: Knowledge, power, and intimacy in the birthplace. Qualitative Health Research, 18(2), 254-267.
Moderator: Melissa Cheyney
April 11
Monnet, E., Ramée, C., Minello, A., Jooste, V., Carel, D., & Di Martino, V. (2008). Socioeconomic context, distance to primary care and detection of hepatitis C: A French population-based study. Social Science & Medicine, 66(5), 1046-1056.
Moderator: Alexandra Fehr
April 18
Kunitz, Stephen J. “Life-Course Observations of Alcohol Use Among Navajo Indians: Natural History Or Careers?” Medical Anthropological Quarterly 20, no. 3 (2006): 279-96.
Moderator: Pete Collings
April 25
Kamat, Vinay R. “"I Thought it Was Only Ordinary Fever!" Cultural Knowledge and the Micropolitics of Therapy Seeking for Childhood Febrile Illness in Tanzania.” Social Science & Medicine 62, no. 12 (2006): 2945-59.
Moderator: Aryeh Jacobsohn
May 2
Lane, S. D., Keefe, R. H., Rubinstein, R., Levandowski, B. A., Webster, N., Cibula, D. A. et al. (2008). Structural violence, urban retail food markets, and low birth weight. Health & Place, 14(3), 415-423.
Moderator: Lance Gravlee
Fall 2007
September 18
Parikh, S. A. (2007). The Political Economy of Marriage and HIV: The ABC Approach, "Safe" Infidelity, and Managing Moral Risk in Uganda. American Journal of Public Health 97:1198-1208.
Moderator: Lance Gravlee
Note: This week only, we will meet in the Diaspora Room, Turlington 1350.
September 25
Quinlan, M. B. & Quinlan, R. J. (2007). Modernization and Medicinal Plant Knowledge in a Caribbean Horticultural Village. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 21:169-192.
Moderator: Eric Kightley
October 2
Wendland, C. L. (2007). The Vanishing Mother: Cesarean Section and "Evidence-Based Obstetrics." Medical Anthropology Quarterly 21:218-233.
Moderator: Kim Cox
October 9
Lonardi, C. (2007). The Passing Dilemma in Socially Invisible Diseases: Narratives on Chronic Headache. Social Science and Medicine, 65(8), 1619-1629.
Moderator: Erica Gibson
October 16
Wood, K., Lambert, H., & Jewkes, R. (2007). Showing Roughness in a Beautiful Way: Talk about Love, Coercion, and Rape in South African Youth Sexual Culture. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 21(3), 277-300.
Moderator: Melissa Lanzone
October 23
Taubes, G. (2007). Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy? New York Times Magazine, September 16,p. 52.
Moderator: Amy Non
October 30
Bindon, J., Dressler, W. W., Gilliland, M. J., & Crews, D. E. (2007). A cross-cultural perspective on obesity and health in three groups of women: the Mississippi Choctaw, American Samoans, and African Americans. Collegium Antropologicum, 31(1), 47-54.
Moderator: Erica Gibson
November 6
Liburd, L. C. (2003). Food, Identity, and African-American Women with Type 2 Diabetes: An Anthropological Perspective. Diabetes Spectrum, 16(3), 160-165.
Moderator: Bridgett Rahim-Williams
November 13
Kuzawa, C. W. (2007). Developmental origins of life history: Growth, productivity, and reproduction. American Journal of Human Biology, 19(5), 654-661.
Moderator: Lance Gravlee
November 20
Jones, J. H. (2005). Fetal programming: adaptive life-history tactics or making the best of a bad start? American Journal of Human Biology, 17(1), 22-33.
Moderator: Eric Kightley
November 27
No journal club (AAA Meetings)
December 4
Trnka, S. (2007). Languages of labor: negotiating the real and the relational in Indo-Fijian women’s expressions of physical pain. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 21(4), 388-408.
Moderator: Lance Gravlee





