Newsletter: November 2001
Ann Miles and Fred Bloom Co-Contributing Editors
Sub-groups Host Special Events
Student Membership
Sabrina Chase (Rutgers)
This year the SMA sponsors a unique session entitled “Getting Your Articles Published: Strategies for Medical Anthropologists.” The event is an informal panel discussion targeting entering faculty, graduate students and others considering a first-time submission to one of the major medical anthropology journals. However, because the panel brings together so many experienced editors it will be useful for anyone trying to launch their work into circulation. The panel assembles seven current and former editors-- specialists in publishing innovative work. Mac Marshall and Gay Becker represent “Medical Anthropology Quarterly”, Byron Good and Mary-Jo D. Good “Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry,” Peter Brown and Stacy Leigh Pigg “Medical Anthropology,” and Betty Levin “The American Journal of Public Health.” The goal is to provide authors with concrete guidance, answer questions and increase the chances of successful submissions. Peter Guarnaccia will moderate the session at 6:15 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday. This session is free and open to all.
Other student activities include a meeting of the Student Membership Committee open to all graduate and undergraduate students. We will focus on generating opportunities for mentorship, identifying successful strategies for an initial publication and exploring career opportunities for new medical anthropologists. The meeting is 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday. Bring your lunch and join us!
AARG
EJ Sobo (Children’s Hospital, San Diego)
The AIDS and Anthropology Research Group (AARG) presents two paper prizes on Thursday at 6:15 . Also, unique this year is the heavy participation of AARG members in the visual anthropology session “Texts in a Film/Video Format: Innovations in African Imagery as Ethnographic Evidence.” The session features Kearsley A Stewart (Northwestern), presenting “All The World Is A Stage: Ugandan High School Students Send A Video Message To The World,” and Laura Arntson (Save the Children), presenting “’Everyone’s Child’ And Ethnographic Evidence of The Liminal Worlds Of Aids Orphans.”
CONAA
Nancy Anderson (UCLA) and Lauren Clark, (Colorado Health Sciences Center)
Prominent among events this year is the December 2001 publication of the CONAA Founders’ Papers in a special issue of the Western Journal of Nursing Research. Originally presented in an invited session titled “The Anthropology of Nurse Anthropologists” at the 1986 AAA Meetings, the papers were edited and compiled into a booklet for CONAA members in 1991 by Evelyn Barbee. These papers were written by CONAA luminaries Elizabeth Byerly, Margarita Kay, Madeleine Leininger, Agnes Aamodt, Pamela Brink, and Oliver Osborne and discussants Noel Chrisman and Evelyn Barbee. This new publication includes the original papers, new authors’ addenda, an introduction by Evelyn Barbee, and an editorial by Nancy Anderson.
CONAA prepared a session for AAA 2001 coinciding with the publication of the Founders’ Papers, focused on the AAA meeting theme, “100 Years in Anthropology: The Transformation of a Discipline.” Although the session was not scheduled for presentation, we plan to celebrate the contributions of CONAA founders, current and past members, and past presidents during the business meeting at the AAA’s (Friday at 7:45pm) and SfAA meetings.
The CONAA Board has worked to boost membership over the past two years. We recognize the need to improve and increase collaboration with anthropologists, particularly medical anthropologists. Therefore, we plan to use the session rejection by SMA/AAA as impetus to explore ways to increase dialogue between nurse anthropologists and anthropologists and enhance mutual understanding and communication. Nurse anthropologists, anchored in both nursing and anthropology, see the immanent logic and rationale for our dual foci. We invite our medical anthropologist colleagues in SMA to join us in co-sponsored sessions and mutually productive dialogue.
CAR
Lisa Bourgeaut (Berkeley)
Congratulations to Susan Erikson, winner of the Council on Anthropology and Reproduction (CAR) First Annual Student Paper Award for her submission, "German Prenatal Diagnostic Technology use a Decade after die Wende: 'Old' Differences in the 'New' Vaterland." Erikson is a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of Colorado (Boulder). She receives the award at the CAR business meeting.
The deadline for the CAR Second Annual Student Paper Competition will be in February, 2002. Contact Gail Landsman at landsman@csc.albany.edu or Lisa Bourgeault at mailto:lisabour@uclink4.berkeley.edu.
To submit to this column, contact Ann Miles at miles@wmich.edu.