HudsonMemo1revisedb

This project looks at how “health-care” is refigured through bodywork such as yoga and massage therapy. Particular focus will be on the relationship between health and change || Interviews with massage therapists, yoga teachers, craniosacral therapists, acupuncturists, and other bodywork professionals in Upstate New York; participant observation in yoga classes and therapy sessions; participant observation in a yoga teacher training program; photo and video documentation of yoga and massage therapy; statistics on the prevalence, benefits and risks of bodywork; news articles on yoga and bodywork; participant observation at workshops and seminars; historical review of bodywork in the US || - How is healthcare imagined and practiced in neoliberalism?
 * Topical Area || Data Sets || Social Theoretical Questions || Why Now? || How Prepared || Biases || Fields of Work || Funders ||
 * __**Bodywork**__

- How is change perceived and crafted through the body?

- How is gender refigured (or not) through neoliberal health practices?

- How does learning happen through body relations? || More work needs to be done on bodywork in the social sciences and humanities. There are many angles to consider: bodywork as a technique of medicine and as a scientific practice; the ways in which the growth of bodywork responds to healthcare crises in the US; bodywork as a gendered practice. I don’t think STS addresses bodywork as a profession or health practice; a project on bodywork could also help to push feminist theory (or praxis) in new directions. And even drawing on old themes in feminist theory, there are questions to be raised regarding the feminization of yoga in the US, whereas in India it is cast as traditionally male-dominated. 86% of massage therapists are women, and most people entering the fields are women in the forties seeking a second career. Why are more women seeking out bodywork now?---if that is in fact the case. || I think I am very well prepared to undertake this project given my experience as a yoga student and a person who has received bodywork. I am also very passionate and interested in the topic of health and care. I know a lot of yoga teachers and students and a good deal of bodywork professionals. Within the next year I intend to become a certified yoga instructor. I also regularly attend workshops on CAM. In the academic realm, I am very familiar with the feminist literatures on work/labor and health politics. In STS, I have also done a good amount of reading on biomedicalization and neoliberalism.


 * My interest in bodywork is also very much about aging*** || Certainly, as the researcher, I fit the profile of a typical yoga practitioner—white, middle class, female. I also think that bodywork is a positive and healthy practice—I don’t harbor much skepticism; I am a believer. Although I would not say that the change it creates or the awareness it brings is essentially, unproblematically, good, I am inclined to say it is beneficial. And I don’t come to this project with fresh eyes; as a practitioner and student I have a lot of personal investment in body work. I suppose I should say that I need to guard against romanticizing bodywork, although I don’t feel as threatened by romantics as I am by the prospect of studying what may turn out to be a relatively homogenous community of socially privileged participants. || Women’s Studies: women, health, and biology; women’s work and labor practices; feminist pedagogy

Science and Technology Studies: feminist theory; health and the body; gendered health; neoliberal healthcare

Anthropology of the body; feminist anthropology; anthropology of consciousness; visual anthropology; medical anthropology || NSF-dissertation improvement grant NIH- Research on Mind-Body Interactions and Health (R01) Wenner-Gren-Dissertation Fieldwork Grant National Women’s Studies Association-Graduate Fellowship Award International Association of Yoga Therapists || This project will literally revisit and interrogate Sontag’s On Photography. || For this project I would most likely do focus groups with PDI students are RPI, asking them to do various activities with cameras, or interviewing them about their “visual” processes—with rendering programs and so forth. For the focus groups I would probably follow students around with a video camera or still camera to get data. I think it would also be good to do oral histories with photographers or people who are compulsive picture takers—not quite sure how I would find a pool of people here. Crucially, I think a large part of this project would revisit Susan Sontag’s On Photography, and perform a discourse analysis on cultural images today, paying particular attention to what has changed in image culture over the last thirty years. || How does technology enable people to engage the material world?
 * __**Photography**__
 * __**Photography**__

How does technology transform engagement with the material world?

How has visual culture changed over the last thirty years?

How does photography facilitate learning?

How are visual images and processes understood temporally? || Photographic technologies have gone through some radical changes in the past decade—at least in relation to mainstream use. The digitization of photography has rendered older model cameras useless, and we are now broaching the possibility of doing away with film altogether. Additionally, photos have adapted as a medium; computer technology makes it increasingly easy (and fun) to manipulate images. Add to this the ways in which photographs are exchanged on the internet, and in some cases used to discipline morally questionable behavior, a revisiting of Susan Sontag’s work On Photography seems quite timely. || I am very well prepared to undertake a project on Photography. I am a compulsive-picture-taker. I have always been interested in visual culture and the “visual”—that is essentially what brought me to school in the first place, wondering “how do people see and how does this affect their behaviors and beliefs”. So, long standing personal interest. I would argue that I am a visual person. Originally, I wanted to go to grad school to study philosophy of art and aesthetics; from undergraduate course work, I’m sure I have would have a minor in the philosophy of art. I have also written a number of papers on the subject. || Photography is about power and privilege. || Visual Anthropology; the sub-field in English concerned with the image; art theory; Women’s Studies, with a particular focus on art and image; Cultural Studies; Science and Technology Studies || Tough. Perhaps NSF’s dissertation improvement grant if I really focused in on and brought forth the relationship between technological and cultural change. || This project looks at cultural understandings of dementia and the aging body under neoliberalism. Particular focus will be on how healthcare systems respond to age-related changes. || Participant observation and interviewing would be necessary for this project. I think participant observation in day program or nursing home for people with dementia would be best. The Eddy, a local elderly care network, has several such programs and units for people with dementia. I think it would be interesting to interview people in the early stages of alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers. Special attention would be paid to gender since gender has been almost complete absent from scholarship on dementia. || - How is aging treated under neoliberalism?
 * __**Dementia**__
 * __**Dementia**__

- How is healthcare affected by age?

- How is aging understood through the body?

- What are the gendered dimensions of aging? || Elderly dementia is one of the leading public health problems in aging populations. It is an incredible financial, social, and emotional burden for families. There is no cure and, arguably, a lack of understanding about dementia, its causes, and potential treatments. More recently, at least in AD research communities, failed clinical trials have led some scientists to question basic assumptions made about the biological mechanisms behind the aging brain. || Well, I just spent two and a half years researching aging and dementia… that’s got to count for something. I’m also pretty obsessed with aging. Fascinated really. || Here it’s difficult to identify bias, since I’ve been with the topic for awhile. Age itself is a huge bias though. I also have never lived with anyone who suffered from dementia. I’m also somewhat suspicious of the way dementia is cast and figured. || Gerontologists, and those in the field of critical geronotology specifically.

Women’s Studies, those concerned with women’s work and aging

Science and Technology studies, those concerned with biomedicalization and the group that is starting to publish on the relationship between science, technology, and age.

Medical anthropologists. || National Institute on Aging; Alzheimer’s Association; NSF-dissertation improvement grant, if I were to study the technologies involved in diagnosing and caring for elderly dementia. || This project would fall under public understandings of nanotechnology. || I would do focus groups in upstate new york. Here, nanotechnology is being pushed into the local culture by nanotech companies and research centers setting up shop. I would do focus groups in Saratoga county, the city of Albany/town of Guilderland, and Watervliet, maybe East Greenbush. I would also do a discourse analysis that focused on how nanotechnology was being pitched in Upstate NY media. This project would actually be a case study of Albany NanoTech and the new SUNY college. || How does emerging phenomena—disease, technology, research—get introduced to the public?
 * __**Nanotechnology**__
 * __**Nanotechnology**__

How is change—social, material, economic—cast in the media?

How is nanotechnology imagined and perceived in neoliberalism? || Every year (and sometimes every month) new developments are made in nanotechnology right here in the Capital Region. More schools are being enrolled in Albany NanoTech’s educational programs—which are designed to train the next generation of tech laborers. Nanotechnology is also an emerging technology, and it is unclear how effective current/existing regulations will be in policing and monitoring advancements. What’s interesting about nanotechnology is the discursive shift, the imaginary involved here. || I spent quite a bit of time looking at nanotechnology in the Capital Region. I know the history of Albany NanoTech pretty well and have written numerous seminar and conference papers that take nanotechnology in Upstate NY as a case study. Since I grew up 10 minutes from where this ground breaking nanotech R&D center was built, my personal interest and concern with nanotech in Upstate New York is huge. I’ve also done a fair amount of reading. I should probably learn more about the economic and industrial history of Upstate NY since I think that would help shape such a project. ||  ||   || NSF dissertation improvement grant; Wenner-Gren doctoral dissertation fieldwork || This project would be a survey of different environmental education models. There would be a mix of child and adult educational programs surveyed, and would include state-run, school-based, and wilderness training programs. || Participant observation in New York State environmental education program, such as those run by the Department of Environmental Conservation—at the five nature centers. There are also a lot of wilderness training programs in the northeast. A very good one in Southern Maine and another one in Central New York that I would participate in over the next year. I would also do interviews with environmental educators in these programs and perhaps do some research on how local public schools conduct education on the environment; from there I would interview whoever is in charge of or facilitating those programs. I would also do textual analysis of environmental education policy, focusing on national and NYS policy documents. || How are cultural beliefs and understandings smuggled into learning practices?
 * **__Environmental Education__**
 * **__Environmental Education__**

How is change imagined and crafted in the environment?

How is nature/culture conceptualized and engaged in environmental theory and practice? || The past thirty years have witnessed increased concern over the environment, and environmental justice. I think that this is a good project to undertake now because of the way sustainability discourse is seeping into everything. In that sense, it would be interesting to look at how environmental discourse has shifted over the past few years. This would be something to interview environmental educators about. I also think that there is a lack of scholarship on environmental education in anthropology, women’s studies, and STS; does environmental education research have a critical edge? || I’m very passionate about education and have a fair amount of teaching experience. This is important. I also want to do some kind of teaching---even if I’m not sure what setting that could be in yet. I think such a project requires an interest in the environment, which I have. I spend a lot of time outside—even when its negative three degrees. One of the things that fascinates me about the environment is the way it changes, the observability of the environment. Or maybe that is just one of the ways we conceptualize nature = nature is observable. So maybe I like the environment because it allows me to observe change. I don’t have much background or knowledge of environmental science. || I suppose I romanticize about the environment and tend to take a spiritual approach towards it. I think my experience with the environment and its availability to me (in what might describe as a privileged form) also places me in a specific location/relation to the environment. This derives from class privilege. || Women’s Studies: those interested in pedagogy, feminist theory, the environment

Anthropology: teaching and learning; environment; nature/culture

Science and Technology Studies: Education; Environment || NSF-dissertation improvement grant ||
 * **__Transportation__** ||  || How is learning facilitated by mobility/transportation?
 * **__Transportation__** ||  || How is learning facilitated by mobility/transportation?

How is mobility gendered? / What is the gendered nature of mobility?

How is change imagined and practiced through transportation? || I really don’t think that mobility has been well covered in cultural studies and philosophy. There are a lot of applied studies on mobility and infrastructure. A lot of quantitative research, but most of this work lacks critical, theoretical engagement. I do think that mobility is beginning to get picked up in STS. I would like to see the same in Women’s Studies. Beyond that I think that mobility is becoming, is already a critical issue. I’ve often been curious about how transportation discussions address the needs of people living in rural areas—which from what I can tell in the aging literature, it doesn’t—and gender and family life. || I am ill prepared to undertake such a project. I haven’t read much transportation literature—except essays on aging and mobility. || I have never lacked mobility. I have always owned or had access to a car. || Women’s Studies: although its difficult to say what my niche would be in this area. Perhaps women and work. Women and STS

STS: mobility, technological change, environment, gender || Department of Transportation

National Women’s Studies Association—Graduate Student Fellowship

NSF dissertation improvement grant ||