Rapid Response

Spawned in mid-2020, amid the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests and the Covid-19 pandemic, Rapid Response publishes essays that relate to rapidly evolving experiences.

Latest Posts

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Social Justice Syllabi

March 28, 2024

The syllabi and related teaching resources gathered in this section can help you fold urgent issues of social justice into your medical anthropology courses. This space includes resources created in partnership with MAQ, as well as independent initiatives. For more teaching ideas, check out the pedagogical resources that accompany each… (Continue Reading)

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Janelle S. Taylor Featured on This American Life Podcast

February 1, 2024

Janelle S. Taylor's highly cited article "On Recognition, Caring, and Dementia," published in 2008 in Medical Anthropology Quarterly, has now been adapted into a story that aired on February 5th on This American Life, as part of Episode #823, "The Question Trap."  This American Life airs weekly on radio stations across the U.S.… (Continue Reading)

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Women Vanish, Again.

Claire L. Wendland

November 22, 2022

Medical anthropologists attend to how power inequities predispose particular people’s bodies to harm, and render particular people’s interests irrelevant to dominant social institutions. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, we can expose the processes that have made pregnant women vulnerable, irrelevant,… (Continue Reading)

Blog Series: Reproductive Justice in the US

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CAR Statement on the Reversal of Roe v. Wade

August 28, 2022

Eliza Williamson, Brenna McCaffrey, Ashish Premkumar, Joanna Mishtal, Megan Cogburn, Becca Howes-Mischel, and Lucy Lowe  Anthropologist Joanna Mishtal at the March for Abortion Access at City Hall on Oct. 2, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Photo credit: Joanna Mishtal Introduction “Restricting access to safe and legal abortion forces pregnancy-capable people to make the difficult… (Continue Reading)

Blog Series: Reproductive Justice in the US

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Beyond the Market Monopoly: How Patents Act

Zahra Hayat

July 21, 2021

As the covid-19 pandemic highlights the fault lines between rich and poor countries, one set of debates has crystallized around the question of access to vaccines. Countries in the global North, including the U.S., U.K., and Canada have surpluses; countries in the global South do not have nearly enough. For… (Continue Reading)

Blog Series: COVID-19 Responses

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Pfizer and the Sovereign: Cuba’s COVID19 vaccine offers an interesting counterpoint to the Pfizer roll-out in the US.

Naomi Schoenfeld

December 21, 2020

As 2020 draws to a close, the COVID19 pandemic rages on, yet, undoubtedly, we have entered a distinct phase as a number of countries now begin or plan for mass distribution and administration of newly developed vaccines. As of this writing, there are six approved vaccines and over 50 candidates… (Continue Reading)

Blog Series: COVID-19 Responses