I am currently focused on the question of how we can extend theories of moralized classification (such as stigma) to understand how we come to define human bodies and ecosystems as "healthy" or not. This is currently focused on three major tainted categories that shape human experience and biologies: being defined as "fat," "dirty," and "a weed."

WEIGHT: Small World/Big Bodies

For the last 3 decades, I have been using comparative (cross-cultural) research to understand trends in how humans react to their own and others' body weight, and explain their biological, social, and emotional consequences.

Currently, I am coordinating social science teams in seven countries to investigate global experiences of GLP-1 drugs (like Wegovy and Ozempic) as these are becoming more accessible. This is an exciting and rapidly changing socio-medical landscape with much social science can offer to thinking through how this can be done with adequate attention to an array of complex consequences.  My focus is on understanding how this new class of effective drugs is reshaping which bodies are defined as "normal" and "healthy" or not.

WEEDS: Reframing Our Tainted Species [ROTS]

Using a comparative, global perspective, this project asks: how has the assignment of a tainted cultural category – “weed” – acted to shape both human and plant biologies? This project considers how and why specific plants become maligned, people attached to them become stigmatized, how this shapes everyday practices of management, exposure, eradication, and use, and what it means for human health, plant evolution, our shared ecosystems and the future of our planet.

WATER: Stigma, Distress, and Household Water Insecurity 

For some years, I have been working to understand the biocultural mechanisms that link water insecurity to worse health and mental health outcomes. This research has revealed that it isn't living with insufficient safe water that most distresses humans. It is the social meanings and consequences for social rejection and inequality that matter most. Data collection in this wider multi-year and multi-sited project is now complete, and I am shifting to a synthesis/writing/re-theorization phase.