As the pandemic of SARS-CoV2 (the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19) unfolds it continues to impact contemporary forms of sociality and community, health, care, governance, and global interconnectedness. These changes and the myriad challenges they pose are critical fodder for anthropologists of health and medicine, and we are called upon now to document lived experiences, reflexively use social theory and …
Tag Archives: United States
El Virus: A Contagion of Racism & How Networks of Care Can Stop It
My mother FaceTimed me a month ago and asked if I needed her to ship me hand sanitizer from Phoenix to Oregon. I thought it a silly question, but in hindsight, I should have known better than to doubt my mother. During our chat she informed me that a relative called earlier in the day to check in on her, …
Disasters and capitalism…and COVID-19.
I recently participated in a radio talk show on the topic of disaster capitalism and the current COVID-19 pandemic. Is the COVID-19 pandemic a disaster? If it is, how does it compare to other disasters that anthropologists have written about? Might the lessons learned from other disasters, like the Hurricane Katrina recovery in New Orleans, be useful in understanding the …
Alison Kenner’s Breathtaking: Asthma Care in a Time of Climate Change

Breathtaking: Asthma Care in a Time of Climate Change
University of Minnesota Press, 2018. 236 pages.
Asthma is thought to affect an estimated 339 million people around the globe, with a prevalence rates as high as 20% of adults in some nations (Global Asthma Network 2018). It is one of the most common chronic conditions, impacting people across …
A Year of Trans Childhood
Trans Kids: Being Gendered in the Twenty-First Century
University of California Press, 2018. 320 pages.
The Trans Generation: How Trans Kids (and Their Parents) are Creating a Gender Revolution
NYU Press, 2018. 288 pages.
Trans young people are a matter of vital attention in the United States. Recently, trans-identified youth have figured in arguments about healthcare…
PrEP at the After/Party: The ‘Post-AIDS’ Politics of Frank Ocean’s “PrEP+”
Introduction
HIV/AIDS prevention efforts have taken many forms, ranging from pop-up stalls at LGBTQ+ Pride parades to circuit parties at popular queer venues. In this essay, we examine music artist Frank Ocean’s recent attempt to revivify the HIV prevention-access circuit party: a dance event primarily attended by gay men which emerged in cities in the United States to fundraise for …