On October 2 (11am) Lindsey Novak (Reed College) will be sharing their research on the economics of abduction marriage to the JSDE seminar. In several Asian and African countries, a sizable share of marriages are initiated by the man abducting the woman he wishes to wed. In this paper, we use quantitative and qualitative methods to characterize the practice of abduction marriage. We first use Demographic and Health Survey data along with ethnographic data to characterize women and ethnic groups affected by this practice in Ethiopia. Secondly, we present the results from in-depth surveys with community leaders and abducted women in the Gambella region of Ethiopia to gain a deeper understanding of how the practice functions. Finally, we empirically examine the hypothesis–found in the literature and reiterated in our qualitative interviews–that abduction marriage is most often used by men to improve bargaining power in marriage negotiations and reduce the size of the bride price payment at marriage. We find that the experience of negative rainfall shocks, a proxy for income shocks, during teenage years increases the probability of being abducted only for women from ethnic groups that practice bride price. We argue this is consistent with the strategic use of abduction to reduce the size of the bride price payment.   The JSDE seminar will take place in 410 Savery Hall or via zoom: https://washington.zoom.us/j/6044712020

CSDE and the South Asia Center are co-sponsoring a workshop on “Migration and Health: Perspectives from South Asia” on October 12 & 13, where CSDE Affiliates Nathalie Williams and Sarfraz Khan will be hosting. Events on October 12 will be held in 337 HUB and events on October 13 will be held in 360 Parrington. Participants can join by zoom, as well. Details here.

National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) is hosting a webinar with state and local-level survey programs to discuss experiences in multimode health and nutrition data collection. Multimode data collection can include interviews, physical assessments, and biospecimen collection. The webinar will address topics such as innovative data collection, including novel survey measurements and meaningful community engagement. The collaborative discussions will generate ideas to improve survey participant experience, response rates, efficiency, and outreach. There will be presentations by State and local programs followed by panel discussion and Q&A on issues related to response rates, community engagement, funding, innovative methods, and health equity. Register here!

 

CSDE Affiliate Karen Chen will present her work, “Urban Form and Mental Health”. Her recent research is focusing on urban environmental change and its related issues: 1) environmental health, mental health; 2) sustainable development in mountainous regions; and 3) open data and science for the Global South. Dr. Chen’s talk is part of the ENV H 580 seminar series and is open to faculty, staff, and the public.

Karen T.H. Chen is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning and the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the University of Washington, where she is also affiliated with the Data Science Program. She is a quantitative geographer enjoying the synergy of machine learning and earth observations (2022 Women in ML4EO). Her recent research is focusing on urban environmental change and its related issues: 1) environmental health, mental health; 2) sustainable development in mountainous regions; and 3) open data and science for the Global South. Dr. Chen’s talk is part of the ENV H 580 seminar series and is open to faculty, staff, and the public. Follow her work on ResearchGate and LinkedIn.

Register for Dr. Chen’s seminar here.

The Department of Anthropology and CSDE are co-sponsoring the Sam Dubal Memorial Lecture.  This year’s lecture will be given by Dr. Natali Valdez.  Dr. Valdez’s talk is entitled “Weighing the Future: Race, Science and Pregnancy Trials in a Postgenomic Era.”  The talk is on Oct. 13 from 1:30-2:50pm and will be online via zoom.  Registration information can be found here.

Contemporary clinical trials selectively draw on epigenetics to connect behavioral choices made by pregnant people, such as diet and exercise, to health risks for future generations. As the first ethnography of its kind, her book examines the sociopolitical implications of ongoing pregnancy trials in the United States and the United Kingdom, illuminating how processes of scientific knowledge production are linked to racism, capitalism, surveillance, and environmental reproduction.

Natali Valdez is a medical anthropologist and science and technology scholar who studies how race, gender, and power are enveloped into scientific knowledge production. She draws from Black feminism and postcolonial feminist science studies to critically examine epigenetic and postgenomic conceptions of the environment in social and biological (re)production. Her current and ongoing research interests include systemic racism, inter/transgenerational trauma, somatic therapy, big data, metabolic illness, and predictive medicine. She is an assistant professor at Purdue University, and this year she is a Presidential Visiting Fellow at Yale University.