Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Education
Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology and Near Eastern Studies
University of Arizona
Dissertation: The Aesthetics of Health in the Everyday Life of Moroccan Women
M.A. in Cultural Anthropology with a concentration in Medical Anthropology
University of Arizona
BA in Anthropology
Wellesley College
Contact
Ext. 5407
mmacphee@rwu.edu
Courses
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Qualitative Research Methods
Self, Culture and Society
Anthropology of Religion
Medical Anthropology
Social Theory
Culture and Power
Human Behavior
Research Interests
Embodied experience; Intersubjectivity; Cultural, emotional and spiritual dimensions of health; Social Inequality; Sustainable Communities; Geographic regions: Middle East/North Africa, U.S., Scotland.
I have conducted ethnographic research on AIDS and the meaning of medications in the U.S., and the cultural aesthetics of health and health behavior in Morocco. Additionally, I have worked as an applied medical anthropologist at the National Cancer Institute on issues of health disparities in the United States. I am currently collaborating with Dr. Skolnikoff on a study of the social and cultural contexts that influence adolescent dispositions about physical activity in Southern New England.
Select Publications and Presentations
Aesthetics of Health and Prevention. Invited speaker in the Health and Society Program, Charitè Hospital Medical School, Berlin, Germany. March 2009.
Health Promotion in an Environment of Conflict and Scarcity: The Sociopolitics of Physical Education in the Northeast United States. March 2008 paper presented at the Society for Applied Anthropology meeting in Memphis, TN.
Traveling the Uncharted Path of Leadership in Federal Anthropology [co-authors: S. Heurtin-Roberts and C. Foster], in Practicing Anthropology, 27(3):25-28, Summer 2005.
Emotional Intelligence and Staff Training in After-School Environments [co-author: Michelle Seligson], in New Directions for Youth Development 2004 (103):71-83, (Previous version published as working paper No. 402, Wellesley, MA: Wellesley Centers for Research, 2001).
The Weight of the Past in the Experience of Health: Time, Embodiment and Cultural Change in Morocco in Ethos, 32(3):374-396, 2004.
Medicine for the Heart: The Embodiment of Faith in Morocco, in Medical Anthropology, 22:53-83, 2003.
What I Am Working on Now
Cultural Influences on Health Behavior
I am working on a book manuscript that examines how culture influences preventive health behavior. I focus on the experience of vulnerability and the practical logic underlying strategies of protection in everyday life. The manuscript draws on insights from my ethnographic research in Morocco and applied research at the National Cancer Institute to develop an embodied, knowledge-in-action approach to studying health behavior.
Sustainability Studies Curriculum
As co-chair of the Faculty Ad-Hoc Sustainability Studies Curriculum Committee, I have been involved in the interdisciplinary effort to design a new minor in Sustainability Studies at RWU. In spring 2009, we designed the Introduction to Sustainability Studies course, which will be offered for the first time in fall 2009. Currently, we are in the process of designing the structure and content of the interdisciplinary Sustainability Studies Minor.