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


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