In 2024-25 I am teaching the following courses:

* ANTH 3200: The Anthropology of Global Health
* ANTH 5225: Global Health and Humanitarianism

In 2025-26 I am teaching the following courses:

* ANTH 3200: The Anthropology of Global Health ( Winter term)
* ANTH 3230: Women, Culture and Society (full year)
* ANTH 5130: The Anthropology of Biomedicine ( fall term)

In the past I have taught undergraduate courses concerning the anthropology of reproduction; sex and gender; women, culture and society; medical anthropology; and public anthropology.

I advise graduate students at the MA and PhD level who are interested in the anthropology of medicine, science and technology, global health, reproduction, gender, and feminist ethnography and theory.

Current Courses

I am a medical anthropologist interested in how cultures of biomedicine, science, and technology shape ideas, practices, and materialities of gender, health, and the reproductive body. I have conducted ethnographic research within the global maternal health community, development NGOs in Senegal, and amongst midwives and their clients in Canada. I am the co-editor, along with Lauren Wallace and Katerini Storeng, of the recent volume Anthropologies of Global Maternal and Reproductive Health: from policy spaces to sites of practice (Springer, 2022).

Maternal Health in Senegal

Since 2016 I have collaborated with an NGO based in Dakar, Senegal that delivers maternal health programs in rural and remote areas of the country. The purpose of the research has been to understand the logic and practice of ‘global health' interventions and the experiences of local health professionals and community members.

Global Reproductive Health

My research in this area traces the development of international policy since the 1980s to promote safe motherhood and reduce maternal mortality. Drawing on visual, documentary, and narrative data from governmental, NGO and UN organizations, I pay attention to key debates and emerging tools in the effort to address maternal mortality in low resource settings: the controversial place of traditional birth attendants in maternal health; the production and uses of images (including, photography, film and infographics) in international campaigns as affective, aesthetic information about maternal mortality; and the emergence of new biomedical-technical solutions embedded in feminist politics around reproductive health (such as cell phone apps and the drug misoprostol) . This project intersects with my research in Senegal mentioned above.

Midwifery in Canada

My 2007 book, At Work in the Field of Birth: Midwifery Narratives of Nature, Tradition and Home (Vanderbilt University Press), is an ethnographic account of contemporary midwifery in Ontario in the wake of its historic transition from the margins as a grassroots social movement to a profession in the public health care system in the 1990s. The book describes the contested place of midwifery at that time vis a vis its foundational concepts of nature, tradition, and home as well as in relation to biomedical knowledge, institutions, and technologies. I continue to research and think about midwifery in Canada, including the history of the concept and practice of ‘informed choice’ and, most recently, a project on midwifery and the pursuit of reproductive justice during the COVID 19 pandemic.

Research Interests