I am associate
professor of anthropology in the Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies
Department at the American University of Beirut. I grew up in Ramallah,
Palestine, earned a BA from Brown University, an MA from the Institut National
des Langues and Civilisations Orientales in Paris and a PhD from MIT. I started
working at AUB in 2007. My research and teaching interests lie in the
overlapping themes of disease and illness, birth, gender and oral history. I
conducted field research in Palestine and Lebanon. My research has been
supported by the Wenner Gren Foundation and the Palestinian American Research
Center. My book project entitled Sumud: An Ethnography of Birth, Oral
History and Persistence in Palestine explores birth during the Second
Intifada (uprising) in Palestine. It follows stories about birth in various
sites of the medical infrastructure in the Central West Bank, from hospitals,
to village clinics and homes. It explores the lives and work of mothers,
doctors, midwives, nurses and families in a context of shrinking and
militarized spaces.
I also serve as
director of the Reproductive Health Working Group in Arab Countries and Turkey
(RHWG) https://www.rhwg.org/
I have been
teaching courses and mentoring students the Anthropology MA program, the MA in
Middle Eastern Studies program as well as the undergraduate
Sociology/Anthropology BA program. Some of the courses I have been teaching
are:
SOAN 310
Seminar in Anthropological Theory
SOAN 302
Culture and Mental Health
SOAN 238
Epidemics and Society
SOAN 237 Arab
Culture and Society
SOAN 225 Gender
and Culture
SOAN 218
Anthropology of Medicine and Science
SOAN 217
Anthropology of the Body
SOAN 203
Introduction to Anthropology
SOAN 103
Reading Other Cultures
Books:
Sumud: An
Ethnography of Birth, Oral History and Persistence in Palestine. Forthcoming with Syracuse University Press.
Co-authored
Books:
2018 The Profile of A Neighborhood: Health and
Well-Being in Ras Beirut co-authored
by Afamia Kaddour, Cynthia Myntti, Sawsan Abdulrahim, Nisreen Salti, Livia Wick
and Huda Zurayk. Beirut: American University of Beirut Press.
Peer- reviewed
articles and book chapters:
2017 “Survival and negotiation: narratives of
severe (near-miss) neo-natal complications of Syrian Women in Lebanon. Reproductive
Health Matters: an international journal on sexual and reproductive
health and rights. Volume 25, October 2017: sup1, 27-34.
2015 “Trajectories of Gendered Labor in
Palestine" in A Companion to Middle East Anthropology. Edited
by Soraya Altorki (Editor). New York: John Wiley and Sons.
2013 "الصحة غير
المسيسة و البحوث العلمية" في الصحة في الوطن العربي تحرير
سامر جبور، ريتا جقمان، إيمان نويهض، مروان خواجة و رهام يموت. مركز دراسات الوحدة
العربية.
[Translation
to the Arabic of the book Public Health in the Arab World in
which my chapter appeared “Reflections on the De-politicization of
Health and Scholarship," In Public Health in the Arab World. Edited
by Samer Jabbour, Rita Giacaman, Iman Nuwayhid and Marwan Khawaja. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2012.]
2012 “Reflections on the De-politicization of Health
and Scholarship," In Public Health in the Arab World. Edited
by Samer Jabbour, Rita Giacaman, Iman Nuwayhid and Marwan Khawaja. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2012
2011 “The Practice of Humanitarianism: a
village birthing clinic in Palestine," Global Public Health. Vol.6.
No. 5, July 2011, pp. 534-546.
2011 “The Practice of Waiting Under Closure in
Palestine," City and Society. Volume 23. Issue Supplement
s1, pages 24-44, September 2011.
2010 “What do First Mothers Worry About? A Study of
Usage Patterns and Content of Calls Made to A Postpartum Support Telephone
Hotline," co-authored by Hibah Osman, Monique Chaaya, Lama El-Zein, George
Nassan and Livia Wick, BioMed Central Public Health 2010
10:611.
2009 “Cultural Beliefs that may Discourage
Breastfeeding Among Lebanese Women: A Qualitative Analysis," Hibah Osman,
Lama El-Zein and Livia Wick, International Breastfeeding Journal. 2009, 4:12
2008 “Building the Infrastructure, Modeling
the Nation: the Case of Birth in Palestine," Culture, Medicine and
Psychiatry. Vol. 32 No.3 September 2008
Commentaries
and Book Reviews:
2019 Book review of Space and Mobility in
Palestine by Julie Peteet Anthropological Quarterly. Volume
92, Number 1, Winter 2019, pp. 283-287.
2013 Invited book review of Our Bodies
belong to God: Organ Transplants, Islam and the Struggle for Human Dignity in
Egypt by Sherine Hamdy for Contemporary Islam 10.1007
June 2013
2005 “The Politics of Childbirth in the Context of
Conflict: Policies or De Facto Practices?" co-authored by Rita Giacaman,
Laura Wick, Hanan Abdul-Rahim and Livia Wick Health Policy May
2005, 72 (2)