Post-Doc, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology
British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Fellow, Wolfson College
Wolfson College
About
I am a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow based at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology (Oxford) and Research Fellow at Wolfson College.
I was previously Research Fellow at the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale (EHESS-Collège de France, Paris) (2007-08) and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2007).
I was awarded my PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge in 2007. My doctoral thesis is a study of kinship, change and social transformation among Central Carib populations of northeastern Amazonia, focusing on long-term sedentarisation processes, relations with non-Amerindians and native conversion to Christianity.
I have conducted fieldwork in northern Amazonia since 2003 (among Trio, Wayana and Akuriyo in Suriname and French Guiana), and in Burkina Faso in 2007.
I am currently working on three projects:
Since Sept. 2008
‘Bodies of kin: relations of wellbeing in northern Amazonia’. Fellowship funded by the British Academy.
This project is a study of concepts of personhood and wellbeing in contemporary native Amazonia, focusing on social relations between Amerindians and biomedical health practitioners, and the relationship between conventional medical services and shamanic healing. The Trio and Wayana have migrated close to health care providers in Suriname and French Guiana, in areas newly affected by environmental pollution and social problems associated with clandestine placer mining for gold. Based on comparative fieldwork in missionary and secular medical centres, focusing on traditional knowledge practices comprising embodied knowledge and shamanic skill (especially childbirth, nurturing of kin and apprenticeship in hunting and resource management), the project introduces a relational approach to address key debates in public health using recent theoretical advances in the anthropology of kinship and the body. Beyond its academic output, its conclusions will lead to policy recommendations concerning the provision of health care, sanitation and land use in indigenous Amazonia.
2011-2012
‘Giving birth in an Amazonian gold rush: a survey of indigenous motherhood and healthcare practices surrounding pregnancy and birth among the Wayana (French Guiana and Suriname)’. John Fell OUP Research Grant.
This project is a survey of the experience of childbirth among indigenous Wayana mothers on the headwaters of the Maroni River, which forms the border between French Guiana and Suriname. Its purpose is to document the native point of view on the design and provision of antenatal and neonatal care, and the ways in which biomedical healthcare practitioners interact and communicate with indigenous expecting mothers, in both village and hospital environments. This survey will constitute a pilot study, dealing with a relatively modest sample (the total Wayana population living in five villages in French Guiana number about 1,100), to prepare for a larger regional comparative and collaborative project on sexual and reproductive health among young indigenous parents (aged 13-30) living in northeastern Amazonia (French Guiana, Suriname and Brazil).
From 2012 onwards
‘Healing the Other: a comparative history of missionary healthcare among an Amazonian people, Suriname-Brazil 1959-1994’. Fellowship funded by the Wellcome Trust.
The principal aim of this project is to reconstruct the histories of two primary healthcare systems in Amazonia by comparing their activities among a single transnational indigenous group. Among the Trio, whose territory straddles the border between Suriname and Brazil, health posts were established independently in each country from 1959 by Catholic and Protestant missionary organizations. Both systems were later secularized and incorporated or taken over by the State. The impact of this research will be to provide insight into different approaches to primary healthcare in Amazonia, where both missionary and secular agencies continue to contact isolated peoples.
