Papers and book chapters by Johanna Gonçalves Martín
This article explores how Yanomami health agents use and produce documents in Upper Orinoco healt... more This article explores how Yanomami health agents use and produce documents in Upper Orinoco health posts in Venezuela. In recent decades, a growing number of Yanomami people have learned to read, write, and count, and to make use of different kinds of documents. Yanomami health agents are a particular case example, as health care involves constant production of documents about patients and their diseases. For doctors, documents such as epidemiological registries are useful in the production of collective knowledge about health and disease, or for administrative purposes in relation to a western logic of bureaucratic systems. However, for the Yanomami, these medical documents are relational objects, which open connections to the world of others, and technologies that allow them to be and “do” like the doctors. The Yanomami often speak of their engagement with the health system as “walking the path of health.” An important way to achieve this is learning how to produce medical documents. [Amazonia, health, indigenous people, social anthropology, Venezuela]
This paper addresses the question of care in a hospital environment. Focusing on Yanomami people ... more This paper addresses the question of care in a hospital environment. Focusing on Yanomami people at a hospital in Venezuela, I show how Yanomami practices of re-making the body and restoring health are challenged by the material practices and sensorial qualities of the hospital. Being ill for the Yanomami is an uncontrolled bodily transformation, resulting from improper interactions with other beings. I examine the relation between different components of the Yanomami body, and focus especially on the reconstitution of the body envelope or skin as a fundamental aspect of healing. This reconstitution is accomplished through body techniques that notably involve the senses and which foreground the importance of containment. I argue that the hospital operates as another containing layer among a multiplicity of forms and practices of boundary-making in the healing of bodies. But for the Yanomami, this hospital-container is inappropriate for healing, in the sense that prescribed food is lacking, scents are disturbing, temperatures are either too cold or too hot, relatives and shamans are too far away. I show the significance of recursive practices and the materiality of containment in the processual making of Amazonian bodies, and end with a reflection on the articulation of different projects of healing in the hospital.
Papers by Johanna Gonçalves Martín
Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America, 2015
This paper addresses the question of care in a hospital environment. Focusing on Yanomami people ... more This paper addresses the question of care in a hospital environment. Focusing on Yanomami people at a hospital in Venezuela, I show how Yanomami practices of re-making the body and restoring health are challenged by the material practices and sensorial qualities of the hospital. Being ill for the Yanomami is an uncontrolled bodily transformation, resulting from improper interactions with other beings. I examine the relation between different components of the Yanomami body, and focus especially on the reconstitution of the body envelope or skin as a fundamental aspect of healing. This reconstitution is accomplished through body techniques that notably involve the senses and which foreground the importance of containment. I argue that the hospital operates as another containing layer among a multiplicity of forms and practices of boundary-making in the healing of bodies. But for the Yanomami, this hospital-container is inappropriate for healing, in the sense that prescribed food is l...
Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America, 2015
This paper addresses the question of care in a hospital environment. Focusing on Yanomami people ... more This paper addresses the question of care in a hospital environment. Focusing on Yanomami people at a hospital in Venezuela, I show how Yanomami practices of re-making the body and restoring health are challenged by the material practices and sensorial qualities of the hospital. Being ill for the Yanomami is an uncontrolled bodily transformation, resulting from improper interactions with other beings. I examine the relation between different components of the Yanomami body, and focus especially on the reconstitution of the body envelope or skin as a fundamental aspect of healing. This reconstitution is accomplished through body techniques that notably involve the senses and which foreground the importance of containment. I argue that the hospital operates as another containing layer among a multiplicity of forms and practices of boundary-making in the healing of bodies. But for the Yanomami, this hospital-container is inappropriate for healing, in the sense that prescribed food is lacking, scents are disturbing, temperatures are either too cold or too hot, relatives and shamans are too far away. I show the significance of recursive practices and the materiality of containment in the processual making of Amazonian bodies, and end with a reflection on the articulation of different projects of healing in the hospital.
Revista Estudos Feministas
Resumo: Este dossiê foca nas formas como rituais e práticas de cuidado do ciclo menstrual estão s... more Resumo: Este dossiê foca nas formas como rituais e práticas de cuidado do ciclo menstrual estão sendo transformadas com a biomedicalização da saúde reprodutiva, migração urbana e educação do Estado. Perguntamos como essas mudanças estão sendo experienciadas pelas próprias pessoas que menstruam e como estão sendo debatidas nas comunidades ameríndias, moldando o futuro da menstruação. O Dossiê reúne antropólogas sociais indígenas e não indígenas, cujas obras são discutidas em relação aos seguintes temas: menstruação e supressão menstrual como fronteira de contestação no feminismo contemporâneo; o poder ou perigo do sangue; a menstruação como mediadora das relações entre humanos e ‘outros’; e transmissão de conhecimentos de gênero e intergeracional. Consideramos implicações das mudanças das práticas de reclusão e contenção menstrual que geram novos riscos e oportunidades para pessoas que menstruam na Amazônia e alhures.
Short-term field study involves groups of students working in an off-campus (sometimes internatio... more Short-term field study involves groups of students working in an off-campus (sometimes international) setting, and often involves working on realistic, open-ended problems, in interaction with a host community. Such learning experiences are intended to develop skills and knowledge needed for working across cultures and contexts and in interdisciplinary teams. One aspect of such programs which requires particular attention is their potential to take students out of their ‘comfort zone’, thereby enabling them to question their previously taken-for-granted assumptions. Fully exploiting such opportunities requires considering the role of social and human sciences in such programmes for engineering students. Here we analyse four case studies of short-term field study programmes in engineering education. While there are differences in location (Switzerland, China, Russia, Colombia), and in the nature of the projects, they share a methodology of mixing student disciplines and skills, interaction with people from other cultures or contexts, physically moving to a fieldwork location radically different from a classroom setting, and the use of reflection tools drawn from social and human sciences. Conclusions are drawn from this as to the possibilities, issues and challenges in short-term field studies in engineering education
Információs Társadalom, 2020
Short-term field study experiences are increasingly popular in engineering education. Where they ... more Short-term field study experiences are increasingly popular in engineering education. Where they include an international dimension, they can also develop skills and knowledge needed for working across cultures and in interdisciplinary teams. Such programs can take students out of their ‘comfort zone’, thereby enabling them to question their previously taken-for-granted assumptions. Here we analyze four different case studies of organizing short-term international field study programs in engineering education which share a methodology of mixing student disciplines and skills, of interaction with people from other cultures or contexts, and using reflection tools drawn from social and human sciences. While such programs appear to directly address skills desired in engineering students, it was extremely challenging to fit them within the constraints of a traditional university program and to have their modes of reflection accepted as valid by more traditional engineering education prac...
Anthropology in Action, 2018
In 2015, Germany entered what would later become known as the ‘refugee crisis’. The Willkommensku... more In 2015, Germany entered what would later become known as the ‘refugee crisis’. The Willkommenskultur (welcoming culture) trope gained political prominence and met with significant challenges. In this article, we focus on a series of encounters in Berlin, bringing together refugee newcomers, migrants, activists and anthropologists. As we thought and wrote together about shared experiences, we discovered the limitations of the normative assumptions of refugee work. One aim of this article is to destabilise terms such as refugee, refugee work, success and failure with our engagements in the aftermath of the ‘crisis’. Refugee work is not exclusively humanitarian aid directed towards the alleviation of suffering but includes being and doing together. Through productive failures and emergent lessons, the collaboration enhanced our understandings of social categories and the role of anthropology.
The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 2016
This article explores how Yanomami health agents use and produce documents in Upper Orinoco healt... more This article explores how Yanomami health agents use and produce documents in Upper Orinoco health posts in Venezuela. In recent decades, a growing number of Yanomami people have learned to read, write, and count, and to make use of different kinds of documents. Yanomami health agents are a particular case example, as health care involves constant production of documents about patients and their diseases. For doctors, documents such as epidemiological registries are useful in the production of collective knowledge about health and disease, or for administrative purposes in relation to a western logic of bureaucratic systems. However, for the Yanomami, these medical documents are relational objects, which open connections to the world of others, and technologies that allow them to be and “do” like the doctors. The Yanomami often speak of their engagement with the health system as “walking the path of health.” An important way to achieve this is learning how to produce medical documents. [Amazonia, health, indigenous people, social anthropology, Venezuela]
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Papers and book chapters by Johanna Gonçalves Martín
Papers by Johanna Gonçalves Martín