Jessica Mulligan
Biographic Data
| ID | 105271 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jessica Mulligan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jessica |
| FAMILY NAME | Mulligan |
| SIGNATURE | MULLIGAN J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Providence College |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8165-7722 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 133 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Fractured insurance families
Health insurance products mediate intimate relations of care in the United States where access to insurance is predicated on income, disability, age, immigration status, and family composition. This study of insurance enrolment experiences under the Affordable Care Act health reform law explores how applicants attempted to strategically naturalize their kin arrangements by applying for health insurance together. Applicants navigated ambiguity aro…
A Eulogy for Jane Robinson
Shortly after losing her health insurance in 2018, Jane Robinson died of a treatable respiratory infection. This article argues that Jane's death occurred at the nexus of two different approaches to care: the necropolitics of uncare and the micropolitics of generative care labor. Both of these approaches to care increased Jane's health and social vulnerability, in turn quickening her death. We adopt the necropolitics of uncare framework to identi…
Forging compromiso after the storm
Puerto Rico was hit by a category 4 hurricane that severely damaged power, water, and communications systems on the 20th of September 2017. Based on 56 qualitative interviews, this article documents how health care workers created a new ethics of care after Hurricane Maria and engaged in novel forms of health activism to both repair past damage and imagine a different future. Many doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals went to work …
Structures of Resentment
Described by many as an emotional state rooted in having been treated unfairly, resentment has surged over the past decade. Resentment politics troubled the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, 2010) in the United States. While some people gained access to health insurance through the ACA, others experienced continued exclusion from affordable coverage. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with poor whites from Florida, Rhode…
Introduction to a symposium on development implementation
This article introduces a symposium of three ethnographic papers on the relational work of policy implementation in the context of international development. Relational work is usually unrecognized in the policy process, creating misunderstandings and barriers as well as promoting improvisation and innovation. Implementers in the cases presented – democracy promotion in Angola, rural livelihoods in India, and birth registration in Tanzania – use …
An ethnographic study of enrollment obstacles in Rhode Island, USA
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 expanded access to health insurance coverage in the United States through online marketplaces that provided subsidized insurance coverage. Nonetheless, many obstacles made it difficult to enroll in and maintain ACA insurance coverage. In this article, we analyze obstacles to enrollment and continuous coverage based on an ethnography of ACA insurance enrollment in Rhode Island. We foreground consumers’ experie…
Unrequited Engagement
The problem of choice
Speaking Ethnography to Policy
Toward an Anthropology of Insurance and Health Reform
This article introduces a special issue of Medical Anthropology Quarterly on health insurance and health reform. We begin by reviewing anthropological contributions to the study of financial models for health care and then discuss the unique contributions offered by the articles of this collection. The contributors demonstrate how insurance accentuates-but does not resolve tensions between granting universal access to care and rationing limited r…
Insurance Accounts
The financial exuberance that eventually culminated in the recent world economic crisis also ushered in dramatic shifts in how health care is financed, administered, and imagined. Drawing on research conducted in the mid-2000s at a health insurance company in Puerto Rico, this article shows how health care has been financialized in many ways that include: (1) privatizing public services; (2) engineering new insurance products like high deductible…
Critical Anthropology of Global Health “Takes a Stand” Statement
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010—the U.S.'s first major health care reform in over half a century—has sparked new debates in the United States about individual responsibility, the collective good, and the social contract. Although the ACA aims to reduce the number of the uninsured through the simultaneous expansion of the private insurance industry and government‐funded Medicaid, critics charge it merely expands rather than reforms the exist…
Take a Stand Commentary
Of the estimated 214 million people who have migrated from poorer to richer countries in search of a better life, between 20 and 30 million have migrated on an unauthorized, or “illegal,” basis. All have health needs, or will in the future, yet most are denied health care available to citizens and authorized residents. To many, unauthorized im/migrants’ exclusion intuitively “makes sense.” As scholars of health, social justice, and human rights, …
Healing Dramas
It Gets Better If You Do? Measuring Quality Care in Puerto Rico
Quantifying quality is supposed to unite health policy, health plans, and health care consumers in a circuit of constant improvement. In practice, significant gulfs separate how policymakers, health plan administrators, and consumers write and talk about quality. Drawing on policy literature, ethnography inside a managed care organization, and interviews with health plan members, this article examines a quality improvement program at a health pla…
Critical Anthropology of Global Health “Takes a Stand” Statement
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010—the U.S.'s first major health care reform in over half a century—has sparked new debates in the United States about individual responsibility, the collective good, and the social contract. Although the ACA aims to reduce the number of the uninsured through the simultaneous expansion of the private insurance industry and government‐funded Medicaid, critics charge it merely expands rather than reforms the exist…
Take a Stand Commentary
Of the estimated 214 million people who have migrated from poorer to richer countries in search of a better life, between 20 and 30 million have migrated on an unauthorized, or “illegal,” basis. All have health needs, or will in the future, yet most are denied health care available to citizens and authorized residents. To many, unauthorized im/migrants’ exclusion intuitively “makes sense.” As scholars of health, social justice, and human rights, …
Toward an Anthropology of Insurance and Health Reform
This article introduces a special issue of Medical Anthropology Quarterly on health insurance and health reform. We begin by reviewing anthropological contributions to the study of financial models for health care and then discuss the unique contributions offered by the articles of this collection. The contributors demonstrate how insurance accentuates-but does not resolve tensions between granting universal access to care and rationing limited r…
Insurance Accounts
The financial exuberance that eventually culminated in the recent world economic crisis also ushered in dramatic shifts in how health care is financed, administered, and imagined. Drawing on research conducted in the mid-2000s at a health insurance company in Puerto Rico, this article shows how health care has been financialized in many ways that include: (1) privatizing public services; (2) engineering new insurance products like high deductible…
Structures of Resentment
Described by many as an emotional state rooted in having been treated unfairly, resentment has surged over the past decade. Resentment politics troubled the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, 2010) in the United States. While some people gained access to health insurance through the ACA, others experienced continued exclusion from affordable coverage. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with poor whites from Florida, Rhode…
The problem of choice
It Gets Better If You Do? Measuring Quality Care in Puerto Rico
Quantifying quality is supposed to unite health policy, health plans, and health care consumers in a circuit of constant improvement. In practice, significant gulfs separate how policymakers, health plan administrators, and consumers write and talk about quality. Drawing on policy literature, ethnography inside a managed care organization, and interviews with health plan members, this article examines a quality improvement program at a health pla…
A Eulogy for Jane Robinson
Shortly after losing her health insurance in 2018, Jane Robinson died of a treatable respiratory infection. This article argues that Jane's death occurred at the nexus of two different approaches to care: the necropolitics of uncare and the micropolitics of generative care labor. Both of these approaches to care increased Jane's health and social vulnerability, in turn quickening her death. We adopt the necropolitics of uncare framework to identi…
Unrequited Engagement
Introduction to a symposium on development implementation
This article introduces a symposium of three ethnographic papers on the relational work of policy implementation in the context of international development. Relational work is usually unrecognized in the policy process, creating misunderstandings and barriers as well as promoting improvisation and innovation. Implementers in the cases presented – democracy promotion in Angola, rural livelihoods in India, and birth registration in Tanzania – use …
It Gets Better If You Do? Measuring Quality Care in Puerto Rico
Quantifying quality is supposed to unite health policy, health plans, and health care consumers in a circuit of constant improvement. In practice, significant gulfs separate how policymakers, health plan administrators, and consumers write and talk about quality. Drawing on policy literature, ethnography inside a managed care organization, and interviews with health plan members, this article examines a quality improvement program at a health pla…
Take a Stand Commentary
Of the estimated 214 million people who have migrated from poorer to richer countries in search of a better life, between 20 and 30 million have migrated on an unauthorized, or “illegal,” basis. All have health needs, or will in the future, yet most are denied health care available to citizens and authorized residents. To many, unauthorized im/migrants’ exclusion intuitively “makes sense.” As scholars of health, social justice, and human rights, …
Healing Dramas
Critical Anthropology of Global Health “Takes a Stand” Statement
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010—the U.S.'s first major health care reform in over half a century—has sparked new debates in the United States about individual responsibility, the collective good, and the social contract. Although the ACA aims to reduce the number of the uninsured through the simultaneous expansion of the private insurance industry and government‐funded Medicaid, critics charge it merely expands rather than reforms the exist…
Speaking Ethnography to Policy
Toward an Anthropology of Insurance and Health Reform
This article introduces a special issue of Medical Anthropology Quarterly on health insurance and health reform. We begin by reviewing anthropological contributions to the study of financial models for health care and then discuss the unique contributions offered by the articles of this collection. The contributors demonstrate how insurance accentuates-but does not resolve tensions between granting universal access to care and rationing limited r…
Insurance Accounts
The financial exuberance that eventually culminated in the recent world economic crisis also ushered in dramatic shifts in how health care is financed, administered, and imagined. Drawing on research conducted in the mid-2000s at a health insurance company in Puerto Rico, this article shows how health care has been financialized in many ways that include: (1) privatizing public services; (2) engineering new insurance products like high deductible…
The problem of choice
An ethnographic study of enrollment obstacles in Rhode Island, USA
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 expanded access to health insurance coverage in the United States through online marketplaces that provided subsidized insurance coverage. Nonetheless, many obstacles made it difficult to enroll in and maintain ACA insurance coverage. In this article, we analyze obstacles to enrollment and continuous coverage based on an ethnography of ACA insurance enrollment in Rhode Island. We foreground consumers’ experie…
Unrequited Engagement
Introduction to a symposium on development implementation
This article introduces a symposium of three ethnographic papers on the relational work of policy implementation in the context of international development. Relational work is usually unrecognized in the policy process, creating misunderstandings and barriers as well as promoting improvisation and innovation. Implementers in the cases presented – democracy promotion in Angola, rural livelihoods in India, and birth registration in Tanzania – use …
Forging compromiso after the storm
Puerto Rico was hit by a category 4 hurricane that severely damaged power, water, and communications systems on the 20th of September 2017. Based on 56 qualitative interviews, this article documents how health care workers created a new ethics of care after Hurricane Maria and engaged in novel forms of health activism to both repair past damage and imagine a different future. Many doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals went to work …
Structures of Resentment
Described by many as an emotional state rooted in having been treated unfairly, resentment has surged over the past decade. Resentment politics troubled the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, 2010) in the United States. While some people gained access to health insurance through the ACA, others experienced continued exclusion from affordable coverage. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with poor whites from Florida, Rhode…
A Eulogy for Jane Robinson
Shortly after losing her health insurance in 2018, Jane Robinson died of a treatable respiratory infection. This article argues that Jane's death occurred at the nexus of two different approaches to care: the necropolitics of uncare and the micropolitics of generative care labor. Both of these approaches to care increased Jane's health and social vulnerability, in turn quickening her death. We adopt the necropolitics of uncare framework to identi…
Fractured insurance families
Health insurance products mediate intimate relations of care in the United States where access to insurance is predicated on income, disability, age, immigration status, and family composition. This study of insurance enrolment experiences under the Affordable Care Act health reform law explores how applicants attempted to strategically naturalize their kin arrangements by applying for health insurance together. Applicants navigated ambiguity aro…
Political science (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Law (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Health care (6 works) · Business (5 works) · Economics (5 works) · Economic growth (4 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (4 works) · Actuarial science (3 works)