尤物视频

From taking part in feminist networks in Mexico City that facilitate access to safe abortion care to learning about the public health consequences of Canadian extractive industry in BC and Colombia, 尤物视频 (SFU) assistant professor Amy Krauss uses anthropological research methods to understand social movements and the politics of care.

鈥淎nthropologists spend a long time in a place getting to know people and the social and political context,鈥� says Amy Krauss, a jointly appointed faculty member in Gender, Sexuality, and Women鈥檚 Studies (GSWS) and Labour Studies at SFU, of her field research in North and South America. 鈥淚 am interested in the way colonial power relations structure medicine.鈥�

We asked Krauss to tell us about her current research 鈥� which includes a new book chronicling the fight for abortion justice in Mexico 鈥� and the social issues students can expect to delve into in her future classes.

How would you describe your current research?

I am currently finishing my first book, based on field work I started as a graduate student in anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. After abortion was legalized in Mexico City, I collaborated with a feminist project assisting people to access safe abortion care 鈥� many of whom were traveling from other parts of Mexico, where it was criminalized. I shadowed acompa帽antes 鈥� or companions 鈥� who accompany people through the process of ending pregnancy, which can include both abortion and miscarriage. My book focuses on how acompa帽antes imagine collective care and justice against a long history of state violence and the injustice of law.

Can you share the backstory that led you to where you are now?

As an undergraduate student at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, I studied abroad in Argentina after the 2001 economic crisis, when workers were taking over factories to run them cooperatively. I lived with other students and unemployed workers in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, and it changed how I thought about feminist movements as part of anti-capitalist struggles. My experience in Argentina attracted me to anthropology, because anthropological research entails living and collaborating with people who teach you about problems in the world from their experience.

How does your teaching and research relate to both GSWS and Labour Studies?

Feminist studies of reproductive labor and care focus on what people do to sustain everyday life. This labour is undervalued, but also necessary for the capitalist system to function and generate profit. My research with acompa帽antes is about how people create alternate models of life-sustaining care and solidarity. It draws on feminist theories of reproductive labour within racial capitalism, which brings together many topics in GSWS and Labour Studies.

What can students expect to learn about in your courses?

I teach in both GSWS and Labour Studies, including courses on the politics of care, feminist theories of justice, and the racial and colonial politics of work and health inequality. In the future, I plan to develop 鈥� in collaboration with other faculty in GSWS 鈥� a course on the Arts of Medicine. It will explore cultural concepts of health, disease, and healing, focusing on critical perspectives in public health and biomedicine and the relationship between medical technology and healing practice. I am also thinking of a new course on environmental loss and justice, and how we can understand and respond to loss at different scales, from the individual to the environmental body.

What is next for you?

The Canadian extractive industry, including mining, has caused environmental loss and displaced people in BC and across Central and South America. My next research project will explore how this takes place comparatively in BC and Colombia. I will begin by looking at how reforms to the medical system in BC address histories of displacement and environmental racism, especially in efforts to incorporate First Nations authority and Indigenous Peoples鈥� healing practices in the larger program of healthcare reconciliation. The new course I teach at SFU next year will be related to this research.