White ants are a delicacy in the subregion Acholi in northern Uganda. Since fresh ones are available only once a year when they become flying roamers, one 100-kg sack of ants can bring in as much money as a teacher in a public school earns within two months. Patrick was thrilled to be able …
The Open Mind: Cold War Politics and the Sciences of Human Nature
University of Chicago Press, 2014, 368 pages.
The Closed World of the Open Mind
In Jamie Cohen-Cole’s hands, the concept of the open mind becomes an effective historiographical tool with which to trace some of the intersections of the social sciences and American political culture …
Migrants in Translation: Caring and the Logics of Difference in Contemporary Italy
University of California Press, 2014, 288 pages.
Exploring the political entailments of rehabilitating “victims of human trafficking” in Italy, Migrants in Translation speaks to the often puzzling disjuncture between recent anthropological and public discourses concerning migrant care and integration: while anthropology’s critiques have led, …
Birth in the Age of AIDS: Women, Reproduction, and HIV/AIDS in India
Stanford University Press, 2013. 274 pp.
Cecilia Van Hollen’s latest book, Birth in the Age of AIDS: Women, Reproduction, and HIV/AIDS in India, provides a nuanced, readable, and extremely compelling exploration of the lived experiences of women enrolled in prevention of parent …
The second annual Health in Transition (HiT) Conference was held June 7-8 in Bucharest, Romania. The HiT Conference had its genesis last year thanks to the vision and dedication of Edit Szenassy, a PhD student at Charles University in Prague. She envisioned an environment where social scientists who research matters of health, illness, and medical care in Central and …
Revolutionary Medicine: Health and the Body in Post-Soviet Cuba
Duke University Press, 2012
288 pgs., US $24.95 (paperback)
Reviewed by Amy Cooper (University of Chicago)
In Revolutionary Medicine, P. Sean Brotherton presents a rich ethnographic analysis of health and medicine in Cuba since the late 1990s, examining state medical institutions, the everyday practices of doctors, …