Introducing: Anthropology!
Anthropology provides vital blueprints for solving the most complex challenges facing humans today. Teaching introductory anthropology is perhaps the most important means we have to communicate to (an often skeptical) wider public audience the value and relevance of our field. Our new "The Human Story: An Introduction to Anthropology" textbook was written in collabration with four fabulous ASU colleagues and Norton publishers. It's been a long and challenging team effort to build a cutting-edge, engaging, optimistic, and integrated 16 chapter summary of a dynamic field in the midst of major reinvention. But we hope that is what we have done.
SSM-Medical Anthro
In mid 2022, I joined the editorial team for Social Science and Medicine, leading the Medical Anthropology desk, along with Cindi SturtzSreetharan (Associate Editor) and Alissa Ruth (Assistant Editor). Contact any of us if you have questions about submissions, ideas for special issues, would like early-career publication mentoring, or if you have feedback to share. We love working with all potential SSM authors - just reach out!
Recent Books
Lazy, Crazy, and Disgusting: Stigma and the Undoing of Global Health: Winner of the Carol R Ember Book Prize (2021) and the Human Biology Association Book Award (2020). Here is more on our anti-stigma work.
Extreme Weight Loss: Life Before and After Bariatric Surgery (2021). Here is a BBC interview about the book.
Fat in Four Cultures: A Global Ethnography of Weight (2021). Here is more on the book.
Household Water Insecurity Experiences Research Network (HWISE-RCN)
I am proud to be on the steering committee of the HWISE research collaborative network, funded by the National Science Foundation. The effort brings together scholars and practitioners from all around the world to better document the lived experience of water insecurity.
Anti-Stigma Work
As part of my scholarly outreach, I am engaged in advancing anti-stigma efforts in medical and public health practice. We have recently developed a stigma awareness/reduction training for CHES credit that is offered free through the Western Public Health Training Center.
Also, here is a recent interview with PBS, talking about why solving this problem matters.
Our Psychology Today Blog
You can visit our Psychology Today blog to enjoy some posts related to our and others' research and thoughts on the connections between stigma and health, imagining ways to make life better for all.
Other Recent Media
Vox -- Explainer video on weight stigma
NPR/The Pulse -- Interview on stigma
Period Podcast -- Illness, stigma, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Psych Central -- How stigma is everywhere.
Water and Society - book series
We have a book series in partnership with Johns Hopkins University Press. We are looking for insightful social science about how water - or lack of it - shapes and reflects our lives and societies.