Critical Care

Critical Care is the online publication of Medical Anthropology Quarterly. Critical Care provides anthropological insights about current events; creating space for public-facing writing, worldly and speculative interpretations of research, and dissemination of work to broader audiences. Critical Care combines the theoretical legacy of medical anthropology with applied, real-world engagements, providing careful responses to urgent matters demanding our attention.

Our editorial team is always looking for innovative and accessible contributions from medical anthropology and neighboring disciplines. Submissions will be reviewed by the MAQ Digital Editor and Editor, and we will work closely with authors on revisions. Multimedia or text submissions can take the form of:

  • reflections on fieldwork in progress
  • introduction of emergent methodologies or concepts
  • medical anthropological perspectives on current events
  • amplifying underrepresented voices in medical anthropology and in biomedicine/tech at large
  • reports from events, workshops, conference sessions

We also welcome online series ideas, which can resemble a journal special issue or be a collected group of submissions focused around a common theme or topic. A series can be curated by a contributor or by the digital editor.

Please contact the MAQ Digital Editor, Jessica Robbins-Panko, with submissions and ideas: jessica.robbins@wayne.edu.

Latest Posts

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Meeting in the Middle? The slippage of “trust” in online public health briefings

Milena Wuerth

December 22, 2022

The main hall of London Bridge train station during the government-mandated winter lockdown (10 January 2020). A sign reads "You must wear a face covering unless exempt. £6,400 maximum fee applies." (Photo by M. Wuerth) It was a bleak winter in the UK: the dreaded second wave of COVID-19 swept in… (Continue Reading)

Blog Series: Theorizing Trust from Anthropological Perspectives

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Vaccine Anxieties and the Dynamics of Trust: reflecting on pandemic landscapes in Uganda and Sierra Leone

Hayley MacGregor and Melissa Leach

November 19, 2022

Photo by Robert OkelloA meeting of the Ugandan COVID Task Force. The COVID-19 pandemic moved into a new phase in 2022 with intensifying focus on technological responses. An increasing reference to “trust” in global-level policy discourse has been noticeable as we have engaged as social scientists and invited participants in global… (Continue Reading)

Blog Series: Theorizing Trust from Anthropological Perspectives

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Confianza: COVID care at the intersection of kinship, community, and biomedicine

Megan Raschig

August 17, 2022

Photo by Jesús E. Valenzuela FélixVIDA Outreach workers distribute free toys, as well as COVID-19 information and PPE, at an event in front of La Princesa grocery store in the Salinas Valley of California. When Yesenia Mendoza and her family contracted COVID-19 in November 2020, they quickly relocated to the county-provided… (Continue Reading)

Blog Series: Theorizing Trust from Anthropological Perspectives

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An Elusive Animal: Trust in an Uncertain Present

Elizabeth Storer and Nikita Simpson

June 15, 2022

Series Introduction: "Theorizing Trust from Anthropological Perspectives" This piece introduces an eight-part series, "Theorizing Trust from Anthropological Perspectives." Nikita Simpson and Elizabeth Storer reflect on theorizations of trust that they encountered while conducting empirical and policy-focused research during the COVID-19 pandemic. They point to the elusiveness of trust as a concept,… (Continue Reading)

Blog Series: Theorizing Trust from Anthropological Perspectives

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Staying Put: Principled Immobility

Alyshia Gálvez

April 29, 2022

For a brief moment in 2020, the global pandemic shutdowns provided a natural experiment: What happens when people stop moving around the globe? Quickly, skies over polluted cities cleared. We could hear the birds even in the most dense urban settings. Pumas and other animals ventured into the vacuum left… (Continue Reading)

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“Masks Are Like a Patch”: On the limits and possibilities of solidarity with farmworkers in a pandemic

Dvera I. Saxton

October 20, 2021

Distributing masks, Indigenous-language information about COVID-19, and encouraging immigrant farmworkers to complete the 2020 Census. Photo courtesy of CBDIO. When immigrant farmworker communities are not accounted for in the official records, like the Census, they will, once again, be denied significant resources and support for at least another ten years. The… (Continue Reading)