Amy followed the research interests: Medical Anthropology, Latin American Studies, and Anthropology of the Body
Amy followed the research interest: Anthropology of Biomedicine
Amy started following the work of 2 people.
Graduate Student, Comparative Human Development
PhD Candidate, Lecturer, Undergraduate Preceptor
Thesis Title: Vital Politics: Medicine and Citizenship in Venezuela
About
I am a cultural and medical anthropologist, broadly focused on the social and political aspects of health care in urban Latin America and the Caribbean. I currently serve as a lecturer and B.A. preceptor at the University of Chicago, where I am completing my dissertation in the Department of Comparative Human Development. In Fall 2012, I will begin working as assistant professor of anthropology at Muhlenberg College. My research and teaching interests include: cultural and medical anthropology, including the anthropological study of public health, biomedicine and popular medicine, the body and life-course, mental health and mental illness, homelessness, and aging; the anthropological study of citizenship and political activism; and Latin American and Caribbean studies. I have conducted ethnographic research on these topics in the urban U.S., Cuba, and Venezuela.
My dissertation, Vital Politics: Medicine and Citizenship in Venezuela, examines recent transformations in the Venezuelan public health system, showing ethnographically how the body and medicine have become the grounds for reworking ideas of national citizenship and community belonging. Funded by a Fulbright-Hays DDRA grant, I conducted fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in clinical and community health settings in the capital city of Caracas. More than simply healing bodies, I found that new state-led programs were expanding the meanings of health and encouraging residents of marginalized communities to rethink their relationship with the state. This research has led me to reconceptualize the anthropological notion of medical or “biological” citizenship, used to describe the ways in which people engage with medical institutions in order to access material benefits and political recognition. By focusing on local forms of patienthood and participation in a rapidly expanding public health system, I show how medically-mediated citizenship can be far more inclusive and politically productive than previously imagined.
I have taught at the University of Chicago since 2007, including social and cultural theory, medical anthropology, Latin American studies, and social science research methods. In the classroom I focus on critical engagements with texts, collaborative student-led discussions, and the mechanics and poetics of writing.
