The Department of Anthropology will host the 2022-23 Kassen Lecturer Thursday, Oct. 27, at 4 p.m. in the Tinkham Veale University Center Senior Classroom. Alexandra Brewis, President’s Professor at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University, will present “All Stigmas are Equal, but Some are More Equal than Others: Connecting Self, Social Stigma, and Global Health.”
Brewis is a biocultural anthropologist at Arizona State University, where she founded the Center for Global Health. Brewis will talk about her recent research, including her book, Lazy, Crazy, and Disgusting: Stigma and the Undoing of Global Health (2019 Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore).
Stigma is increasingly recognized as a major (albeit often invisible) driver of health disparities. As such, anti-stigma work is arguably central to the core goals of global health. Brewis will introduce her team’s recent research using very different cases—people undergoing bariatric surgery in the U.S., smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, and urban women in India. The observation that stigma and its management operate at multiple levels through highly varied pathways suggests the need for developing a more nuanced approach to challenging it through—but also within—global health practices.
The Kassen Lecture, presented annually by the Department of Anthropology, features prominent women social scientists. The lecture series is made possible by the generous support of the estate of the late Drs. Aileen and Julian Kassen.
The lecture is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.