Professor of Anthropology
howesmre@jmu.edu
Contact Info
Education
Ph.D. New York University
M.A. New York University
B.A. Swarthmore College
Teaching
ANTH 195: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
ANTH 265: Peoples and Cultures of Latin America and the Carribbean
ANTH 360: Medical Anthropology
ANTH 364: Anthropology of the US/Latin American Border
ANTH 376: Anthropology of Reproduction
ANTH 435: Ethnographic Genres and Methods
Research
Currently I am researching the gendered contexts of human microbiome research, which involves interviewing scientists and birth workers and tracking academic and popular narratives about its import and applications.
I conducted research in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2005-2008 looking at the broadly overlapping "stakes" of local, national, and global interest in indigenous women's reproductive lives public health spaces (rual clinics, activist seminars, and community education and health campaigns); in 2009 I spent seven months researching health seeking and community-building in the Oaxacan dispora in Souther California. I returned to Oaxaca in 2013 to interview activists and policy makers about how shifts in the global development agendas focused on maternal mortality reductions influences their local projects.
Publications
2017. "Humanizing Big Numbers: Representational Strategies in Industrial Films about Global Maternal Mortality." Visual Anthropology Review. 33(2): 165-177.
2017. Howes-Mischel, R. "The "Sound" of Life: Or How Should We Hear a Fetal 'Voice'?" In The Fetus: Culture, Biology, and Society. Sallie Han, Tracy Betsinger, and Amy Scott, eds. New York, NY: Berghahn Books.
2017. "Stocking up on Fish Mox: a Systematic Analysis of Cultural Narratives about Self-medicating in Online Forums." 4 (5): 430-445. DOI: 10.3934/publichealth.2017.5.430
2016. "With This You Can Meet Your Baby": Fetal Personhood and Audible Heartbeats in Oaxacan Public Health. Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 30(2): 186-202. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/maq.12181/abstract
2015. "Reproductive Justice, Stratified Reproduction, and the Importance of Ethnography in Improving Reproductive Health Outcomes." Maternal Health Series: Disruptive Women in Health Care. http://www.disruptivewomen.net/2015/09/09/reproductive-and-the-importance-of-ethnography-in-improving-reproductive-health-outcomes/
2012. “Local Contours of Reproductive Risk and Responsibility in Rural Oaxaca” in Risk, Reproduction and Narratives of Experience, ed. Aminata Maraesa and Lauren Fordyce, Vanderbilt University Press. 123-140
2005. Gilbert, S. & Howes-Mischel, R. ‘Show Me Your Original Face Before You Were Born’: The Convergence of Public Fetuses and Sacred DNA. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. 27(3)
