Current Institutional Affiliation
Associate Professor, Anthropology, Stanford University

Award Information

International Dissertation Research Fellowship 1999
Institutional Affiliation (at time of award):
Anthropology, University of California / Berkeley
Taking Root: Grounding Science in Local Practice

This multi-sited study will examine the potential benefits of an open dialogue between sickle cell specialists in America, France and Senegal. I am particularly interested in the present negotiation of biomedicine and traditional medicinal therapies from Africa as these make way into "Western" medical arenas in Paris and Dakar. Senegalese specialists educated in France are actively drawing from knowledge acquired in both locales to imagine new ways of approaching sickle cell anemia. My research is concerned with when and why Senegalese, French-trained doctors look to Senegalese "traditional healers." I will also investigate the ways in which French providers are influenced by "traditional African medicine" in the realm of psychiatry, especially when dealing with diseases like sickle cell, which is thought of as specifically "African." By working closely with French and Senegalese doctors, I will chronicle the ways in which biomedical protocols for this disease are clearly being rearticulated in light of non­Western approaches to the sickle cell diseased body.

Menu