Nina Etkin

Professor

Curriculum Vitae

Background
Interests
Current Research
Research Program
Publications
Courses Taught
Additional Information

Background:

B.A. Indiana University (1970, Zoology); M.A. Washington University, St. Louis, (1972, Anthropology); Ph.D. Washington University, St. Louis (1975 - Anthropology). I taught at the University of Minnesota from 1979 to 1990 and joined the Faculty of the University of Hawai'i in 1990.

Interests:

• Medical Anthropology
• Human Biology and Bioanthropology
• Ethnopharmacology
• International Health
• Food, Health & Society
• Human Ecology
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Epidemiology
• Disease and Evolution
• West Africa

Current Research:

My current research centers on two domains:

(a) Studies of botanical medicines and foods in West Africa (northern Nigeria, Hausa), eastern Indonesia (Maluku), and Hawaii: this work juxtaposes pharmacologic assessments of indigenous plant medicines to ethnographic data on the cultural constructions of illness and health.

(b) Investigations of human biological variability focus on the pathophysiology of inherited red blood cell disorders and their protection against malaria infection.

My perspective is biocultural -- linking physiology, culture, and society through fieldwork and laboratory investigations to understand the dialectic of nature and culture in diverse ecologic and ethnographic settings. This work emphasizes the complex interrelations among the varied and overlapping contexts in which botanicals are used -- e.g., as medicine and food. Further, it reveals how traditional therapeutics are combined with pharmaceuticals in both remote village and contemporary urban contexts.

My research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Social Science Research Council, National Geographical Society, American Heart Association, Fulbright/CIES, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Howe and Bush Foundations.

Research Program :

• Medicines of the "informal sector" in contemporary Hawaii: plants, pills, and complementary and alternative medicines. 1990-present
• Ethnomedicine in Eastern Indonesia: indigenous and western medicines in transition. 1990-1996
• Health and therapeutics among Hausa in Nigeria: cultural constructions of Hausa medicine; indigenous medicines and diet; impact on indigenous therapeutics of introduced bio-medicines; local strategies for conserving biodiversity. 1975-present
• Red blood cell studies in hypertension: population and individual differences in cation permeability and pathophysiology. 1980-1984
• Evolutionary significance of ABO blood groups: relation to infectious diseases. 1983-1985
• Southeast Asian indigenous plant medicines and Hmong immigrant reproductive behavior. 1984-1990
• Laboratory and population studies of hemoglobin S (sickle cell anemia) and malaria infection. 1980-1990
• AIDS: behavioral correlates of transmission and prodromal syndromes. 1983-1985
• Post-doctoral field research in northern Nigeria: indigenous medicine in the context of Hausa society; cultural constructions of health and therapeutics, and their biological outcomes; pharmacologic analysis of medicinal and dietary flora; time allocation studies; dietary surveys. 1975-1976

Publications:

(See Curriculum Vitae)

Courses Taught:

Anth 425 Medical Anthropology

The general aim of this course is to introduce Medical Anthropology as a cross-culturalstudy of health and illness from a perspective that is both biological & cultural, evolutionary & contemporary, holistic & comparative. Disease experiences are examined narrowly as social and cultural construction s of local populations and broadly in the context of global political and economic dynamics.

More specifically, Medical Anthropology offers a cross-cultural perspective on medicine and human experience, including the subthemes: gender, ethnicity, and illness; evolution and the distribution of disease; perceptions of the body and the design of therapeutics; cross-cultural studies of mental health; curing with symbols, sorcery, and plants; imperialism, colonialism, and health; introduction of western medicine in developing societies.

 Anth 427 Food, Health and Society

"Nutritional Anthropology" Ñ the study of food, health, and society Ñ examines the cultural constructions and physiologic implications of human diets across time, space, society, and culture. Fundamental to this inquiry is that foods have both material and nonmaterial realities. An integrated biobehavioral perspective for food and cuisine is reflected in this statement: "Food, by virtue of its pivotal place in human experience is, at once, a bundle of energy and nutrients within the biological sphere, a commodity within the economic sphere, and a symbol within the social and religious spheres" (Kandel et al. 1980. Nutritional Anthropology. p. 1). The holistic study of food and nutrition draws attention to: the identification of "edibles" and their organization into cuisines: socioeconomic structure: political ecology and resource allocation: subsistence and food production systems; individual and population differences in food metabolism: the implications of food consumption patterns on health. A specific objective of this course is to foster the comprehension of the complex interrelations among these variables.

Anth 604 Physical Anthropology

This core course surveys biological (physical) anthropology and offers a theoretical and conceptual framework for investigating human physical variability as it reflects adaptations to different bio-cultural environments in past and contemporary populations. The text and assigned readings provide background as well as perspective for weekly topics, which include hominid evolution, human ecology and adaptability, infectious disease, and the confluence of biological and sociopolitical features that influence health in developing countries.

Anth 606 Anthropology of Infectious Disease

This course emphasizes the role that human behaviors play in the distribution, prevention, and therapy of infectious diseases. A central theme draws on the conjunction of anthropology and health to illustrate that human illness in general and infectious diseases in particular represent a causal web of determinants. These constellations are variably comprehensive and dense and include such variables as exogenous (biotic and nonbiotic) elements of the physical environment; endogenous (genetic) factors; population size; details of the political economy; and all variety of human behaviors, as shaped by cultural, social, and psychological factors. Infectious disease can be understood only in the specific contexts where these variables intersect.

Anth 710 Seminar in Research Methods

This seminar is devoted to research design in anthropology. The readings and discussion will combine the essentials of investigation into a problem-solving matrix that links theory to methods. The specific methods explored will include participant observation, key respondents, sampling, open-ended and structured interviews, focus groups, time allocation techniques, sociogeogoraphic mapping, and cognitive methods (e.g., free listing, pile sorts). These are the basic, conventional core of field methods employed by cultural anthropologists, but they overlap other sub-disciplines and fields in the social and biological sciences. Course content will be further coordinated to accommodate the specific interests that students bring to the seminar Ñ for example, ethnobiology (ethnomedicine, ethnobotany), diet surveys, applied anthropology, life history, discourse-centered methods, ethics.

Anth 750 Research Seminar in Medical Anthropology

This seminar focuses on the basic elements of research, publication, and curriculum as they pertain generally to medical anthropology: setting theoretical foundations, developing a problem orientation and writing research proposals, refinement of field and laboratory methodology, data analysis, publication in professional journals. Specific subthemes/topics will be identified to coincide with students' current research and future directions, including curricular embellishment Ñ e.g., medicinal and food plants in Maluku and Kalimantan, Indonesia; health and healing in the Solomon Islands; medicinal plants and other "alternative" (complementary) medicines in Hawaii; psychoactive plants and health in the Amazon; the evolution of malaria in the western Pacific; Chinese ethnobotany; Thai healing traditions.

Additional Information:

President of the International Society for Ethnopharmacology; Fellow of the Linnean Society; Editorial Board Member for American Anthropologist, Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Journal of Ethnobiology, SOMA: Interactions Therapeutiques et Anthropologie Médicale, Anthropology and Medicine, Reviews in Anthropology, Viennese Ethnomedicine Newsletter, Pharmaceutical Biology, Journal of Integrative and Complementary Medicine, Ethnobotany Research and Applications, International Journal of Tropical Medicinal Plants.

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