|
Pardis
Mahdavi,PhD, MIA, MA is currently an Assistant Professor in
the Department of Anthropology at Pomona College. She has
recently received her PhD in Medical Anthropology from
Columbia University. Her research interests include
sexuality, human rights, transnational feminism and public
health in the context of changing global and political
structures.
She is a Woodrow Wilson Women's Health Fellow, as well as
Behavioral Science Training Fellow at the National
Development and Research Institute, and the Institute for
Social and Economic Research Policy. She has received
outstanding research awards from the American Public Health
Association, the Society for Applied Anthropology, and the
Society for Medical Anthropology. |
|
(
Seminar 2008, San Diego )
“Modern
Iranian Women: A Medical Anthropologist’s View”
This
presentation focuses on employing medical anthropology to
meet the unmet needs of Iranian women today. After a
discussion of the field of medical anthropology and its
methodology, I will then focus on particular social
challenges that young women in Iran face today. I will look
at social, economic, and health issues that Iranian women
face, paying close attention to how ethnographic research
can be useful in illuminating these challenges. Concerns
such as unemployment, depression, drug use, and marital and
extramarital sexual encounters and their ensuing public
health challenges will be explored. Qualitative research
(introduced and described throughout the presentation)
conducted between 2000 and 2007 reveals increasing numbers
of young women who engage in unprotected, premarital,
transactional and extramarital sex, and drug use with little
information or concern about contracting HIV or STIs.
Women’s conceptions of risk as well as their vulnerability
to disease and access to testing and treatment centers are
explored through triangulated fieldwork involving
participant observations, in-depth interviews and focus
groups with women, health providers and policy makers in the
IRI. |
