Anthro in the news 4/14/14

• Health equity, smart aid, and “stupid deaths”

KPBS radio (San Diego) interviewed medical anthropologist and health activist Paul Farmer about how to improve health care around the world.

Farmer talked about how to ensure equal access to health care through smart aid and the need to avoid what he calls “stupid deaths.” He comments on the “equity approach” in responding to a question about the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide.

He also addresses tough questions about HIV/AIDs and how to help the poorest people.

• Jim Kim: On leadership and cholera

The Washington Post carried a brief interview (embedded below) with Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank and a medical anthropologist and physician.

Kim discusses leadership and the need to develop a thick skin, in some areas, and openness in others.

During the April 12 meetings of the World Bank, Kim called for a renewed sense of urgency and more coordination from the international community to help Haiti eliminate cholera, which has killed thousands of Haitians since its outbreak in October 2010.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/c/embed/b4e9c246-c0ee-11e3-9ee7-02c1e10a03f0

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Anthro in the news 4/7/14

• Cultural anthropologists fighting Ebola

National Public Radio (U.S.) reported on the role of cultural anthropology in efforts to prevent the spread of Ebola in Guinea.

Health specialists work in an isolation ward for patients in Guékedou, southern Guinea. Seyllou/AFP/Getty Images. — Specialists at a Guékedou, southern Guinea isolation ward. Seyllou/AFP/Getty

Doctors, nurses and epidemiologists from international organizations are flying in to help, along with cultural anthropologists. Understanding local beliefs can help get communities to trust international health care workers, says Barry Hewlett, a medical anthropologist at Washington State University. Hewlett was invited to join the Doctors Without Borders Ebola team during an outbreak in Uganda in 2000. There are anthropologists on the current team in Guinea as well.

Before the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders started bringing in anthropologists, medical staff had a difficult time convincing families to bring their sick loved ones to clinics and isolation wards. In Uganda, Hewlett remembers, people were afraid of the international health care workers: “The local people thought that the Europeans in control of the isolation units were in a body parts business … Their loved ones would go into the isolation units, and they would never see them come out.”

Health care workers did not always promptly notify relatives of a death because of the need to dispose of the body quickly, Hewlett wrote in a report on his experiences in Uganda: “The anger and bad feelings about not being informed were directed toward health care workers in the isolation unit … This fear could have been averted by allowing family members to see the body in the bag and allowing family members to escort the body to the burial ground.” In addition, Hewlett points out that the large tarps surrounding isolation units were removed so family members could see and talk with a sick relative.

Efforts to contain such outbreaks must be “culturally sensitive and appropriate,” Hewlett says. “Otherwise people are running away from actual care that is intended to help them.” Medical anthropologists can help doctors and other medical experts understand how a local population perceives disease, death, and loss.
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Anthro in the news 2/10/14

cipamericas.org

Half an enchilada

In an article about U.S. immigration reform, The Arizona Republic discussed several views and then quoted Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez, an anthropology professor and director of Arizona State University’s School of Transborder Studies. He said that most undocumented immigrants come to the U.S. for a better life for themselves, but especially for their children: “It’s all about sacrifice…They will swallow the poison in order for their children to have a milkshake.”

Luis Plascencia, an anthropology professor at ASU who focuses on migration policy, agreed, saying that if legal status short of citizenship is “…all you are going to get, then you’ll take it…Half an enchilada is better than no enchilada.”

In London: Threat to curry restaurants and late night curry tradition

Cultural anthropologist Sean Carey published an article in The Guardian about a major threat to London’s Brick Lane curry restaurants from a new ruling seeking to ban post-midnight curry meals. The rationale is that the late curry culture is associated with excessive rowdiness. For those who are not aware of this tradition in the UK: after the pubs close, many people move on to have a curry meal between midnight and 2am. [Blogger’s note: curry is the most popular dish in England; you can see more of Sean Carey’s writings here on anthropologyworks].

Alzheimer’s disease and awareness about it

An article in The National (Abu Dhabi) discussed the need to raise awareness about the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in the Middle East. The article noted that while much statistical evidence exists to show that Alzheimer’s is a growing problem worldwide (see the 2013 World Alzheimer Report), the figures do not tell the whole story. It then quotes extensively from medical anthropologist Margaret Lock’s writings in her new book The Alzheimer Conundrum, Entanglements of Dementia and Aging:

“Over the past decade, professional and media publications about Alzheimer’s have increased exponentially, and some highlight an entrenched problem not evident in simple tallies about the burgeoning numbers of elderly…If the burden that increasing numbers of demented elderly place on society, families and individual caregivers is to be engaged with constructively, then the ignorance, fear, stigma, shame, discrimination, denial and indifference commonly associated with dementia must first be exposed and overcome.”

Lock argues for a different approach to Alzheimer’s, one that focuses more on those who do not develop the disease.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day: A chat with Helen Fisher

USA Today provided an interview with biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, professor at Rutgers University and chief scientific advisor of Match.com. The conversation covers the state of relationships as revealed by the second annual Singles in America study, beginning with the question: What was one of the most surprising findings that you came across while doing this study? Continue reading “Anthro in the news 2/10/14” →

Anthro in the news 2/3/14

World Bank’s development plan for Myanmar

Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank and trained medical anthropologist and medical doctor, published an article in The Huffington Post describing the World Bank’s three pillars of its new $2 billion multi-year public and private sector investment program in Myanmar. Noting that 70 percent of Myanmar’s people lack access to electricity, especially in rural areas, he asserts that: “We share the Government’s commitment to expanding reliable, affordable access to electricity, especially to rural areas. That’s why, over the next five years, we’re seeking to invest $1 billion dollars in Myanmar’s power sector…” [Blogger’s notes: So electricity development gets half of the total. Further, the article doesn’t specify how the electricity will be generated, but likely through constructing large hydroelectric dams.]

He then discusses the importance of investing in health, endorsing the government’s goal of “universal health coverage by 2030.” He then turns briefly to agriculture.

[Blogger’s note: Kim was in Myanmar for two days, and I have never been there. But anyone who knows anything about large-scale hydroelectric development has to know that it inevitably displaces thousands of people in rural areas, ruining their small-scale farming opportunities, reducing their food access, damaging their health in many ways, and damaging the ecology.

The World Bank has “accountability” mechanisms in place that supposedly involve close consultation with local communities. So, let’s see how it goes in Myanmar as the Bank and other external players push for economic growth through investing in the energy sector. It goes without saying that the Bank and businesses are profit-seekers: they are not charities. Let’s see if there will be sufficient attention to social justice, including truly informed consent among those displaced and fair compensation for loss of land, water/fishing rights, and other livelihood factors. No matter what, they will never see a proportional return to them from future profits that the energy sector will undoubtedly reap in the future.]

Hospitals defining the time to die

Cultural anthropologist Sharon Kaufman published an article in The Huffington Post on, “Defining Death: Four Decades of Ambivalence”. She discusses several cases in the U.S. in which a person was near death, hospitalized and whether they were allowed to die.

She asks what can we learn from these stories and how can we develop a clearer understanding and acceptance of death? Some first steps: “…Families need to comprehend both what the medical ventilator can do and what its limitations are. Doctors need to talk with families, to continue to provide them with compassionate care during and, perhaps most importantly, following the death of such a patient. And because a ventilator-tethered patient looks so alive, a simple declaration of death is no longer enough. Finally, medical schools need to give higher priority to teaching the communication skills that doctors will increasingly need as they confront the vortex created by unexpected death, complex technology, and the threat of litigation.”

Kaufman is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She has conducted research for 25 years on medicine, the end of life, and the social impacts of advanced medical technologies in an aging society. She is the author of the book, …And a Time to Die: How American Hospitals Shape the End of Life.

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Anthro in the news 1/27/14

From Davos, with anthropology
Jim Yong Kim. Photograph: Enrique Castro-Mendivil/Reuters

Several media sources connected with Jim Yong Kim during this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. According to coverage from CNN in Davos, World Bank president and medical anthropologist Jim Yong Kim has called for a concerted global effort to help Syria’s refugees, saying the international community has failed to formulate an adequate response to a “humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions…”

CNBC also reports on Kim and his view that that Southern Europe is facing the risk of losing a whole generation to chronic unemployment: “Among the things that we’re especially concerned about are the extremely high rates of youth unemployment because that has implications not just for the short term, but especially in the medium to long term.”

The Huffington Post presents Kim’s views on pollution, noting that he has called on global leaders to address climate change: “This is the year to take action. There are no excuses.” His clarion call comes shortly after a WEF report revealed that failure to arrest, and adapt to global warming is one the greatest threats facing our planet.

More about Jim Kim: The World Bank and big dam problems

The Washington Post, in its business section, published an article about the U.S. pushing for greater oversight of the World Bank as it pushes ahead with its new plan to solve extreme poverty through major hydro-elective projects: “In a blow to plans set by World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, the United States recently approved an appropriations bill that orders the bank’s U.S. board member to vote against any major hydroelectric project — a type of development that has been a source of local land conflicts and controversies throughout the bank’s history including the ongoing case of the displacements and human rights abuses related to the Chixoy dam in Guatemala. The measure also demands that the organization undertake ‘independent outside evaluations’ of all of its lending.” [Blogger’s note: In October, CIGA hosted a talk at the Elliott School by Barbara Rose Johnston who is a leading advocate and expert on the Chixoy dam project and the human rights abuses it involved].

Forcing women into marriage

An article in Al Jazeera on forced marriage among Hindus, Muslims, and Jews around the world, mentions the work of cultural anthropologist Ric Curtis of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Curtis, along with some of his students, interviewed 100 students at several City University of New York campuses, focusing on students from Middle Eastern, North African and Southeast Asian (MENASA) countries to try to determine the extent of forced marriage, an issue he suspects is more widespread than what the research shows: “All that we are seeing is the ugly tip of the iceberg, but how much more is there?”

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Anthro in the news 1/6/14

Hope for the world in 2014
Blue Fireworks by Neurovelho. Wikimedia Commons.

Wade Davis, as reported in an article in The Province says, “Each culture is a unique answer to a fundamental challenge: What does it mean to be human and alive?” So, while he recognizes problems with population growth, eco-degradation, and the rapid loss of the world’s languages, he offers a New Year message of hope, “The world is not dying. It’s not falling apart. It’s changing…What young generation has ever come into its own in a world free of peril? I personally believe that pessimism is an indulgence, despair an insult to the imagination. There are wonderfully positive things out there.”

Davis will take up his position as professor of cultural anthropology at the University of British Columbia this fall.

What’s important in Ireland in 2014? Ask a cultural anthropologist

Ireland has transformed over the past six years. Attitudes towards money, work, marriage, masculinity and femininity, care of the elderly and the very idea of society are changing. New technologies are transforming the way we live, work and play. The impact of social media on youth culture is obvious, but technological innovations are also revolutionizing healthcare and work. Continue reading “Anthro in the news 1/6/14” →