On April 17th the Social Justice Institute Research Lunch Series will feature Social Justice Institute Fellows Janet McGrath, Andrew Rollins, Frank Manzella and Megan Schmidt-Sane. The Research Lunch Series is free and open to the community and will take place from 11:30 – 12:45 in Crawford Hall, Room A13. Bring a lunch; drinks and dessert provided. RSVP’s requested to lbk24@case.edu.

Presentation outlines below:

“Anthropology-Engineering Collaborative: Designing Interdisciplinary Solutions to Global Health Problems”

Janet McGrath (professor of anthropology) and Andrew Rollins (professor of biomedical engineering and medicine) will present the results of their collaboration that trains social science and engineering students at CWRU and Makerere University, Uganda in a collaborative design process involving community based participatory action research (PAR) andbiodesign to develop solutions to locally identified technology for health needs in Luwero district, Uganda.

“(Dis)Embodied Experiences of Medical Tourism in Urban Brazil”

Drawing on the results of a one-year ethnographic study on the medical tourism industry in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Frank Manzella (graduate student in anthropology) will focus on the social justice dimensions that encourage foreign patients to seek healthcare in another country.  Additionally, conflicts encountered by patients throughout the many phases of the medical tourism process will be described.

“”We lost many of our friends”: Economic scarcity, social resilience, and HIV vulnerability in Kampala, Uganda”

The research of Megan Schmidt-Sane (graduate student in medical anthropology) employs a broader framing of risk in the patterning of HIV vulnerability and social resilience among men in Kampala, Uganda who live and work in communities deemed “high-risk” due to the presence of sex work. This study draws on core principles in social justice to confront the complexity and fragility that punctuates life at the margins.