Anna Lavis
Biographic Data
| ID | 122018 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anna Lavis |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anna |
| FAMILY NAME | Lavis |
| SIGNATURE | LAVIS A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Birmingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1080-2512 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 47 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
No Ethics Needed? Towards an Ethics of Care for Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement
INTRODUCTION: Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) enhances the inclusivity, relevance and responsiveness of health research for communities. Although public and patient involvement is grounded in lived experience and typically falls outside formal ethical review, ethical considerations nonetheless arise. This paper therefore examines PPIE concepts and practices through an EoC lens. METHOD: Through a thematic, iterative review of …
Exploring Barriers to Recovery Amongst Women with Psychosis
Experiencing psychosis can impact all areas of a person's life, causing significant changes to thoughts, perceptions, mood, behaviour, and sense of self. Details of the specific barriers to recovery experienced by women with psychosis and how these barriers may relate to both sex and gender remain unknown. To identify and conceptualise barriers to recovery, a qualitative secondary analysis was undertaken of 31 semi-structured interviews from a pr…
A thematic analysis of UK Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy discussions on Twitter
This paper highlights key obstacles to COVID-19 vaccine acceptance in the UK based on views from Twitter and contributes to the emerging literature on the relationship between social media and the public response to COVID-19 vaccines. In so doing, this analysis offers insights that are useful for the development of vaccine communication strategies more broadly, both in and beyond future pandemics, to ensure that public concerns are addressed, and…
Patients', carers' and healthcare providers' views of patient‐held health records in Kerala, India
INTRODUCTION: Poor medical information transfer across healthcare visits and providers poses a potential threat to patient safety. Patient-held health records (PHRs) may be used to facilitate informational continuity, handover communication and patient self-management. However, there are conflicting opinions on the effectiveness of PHRs, other than in maternal and child care. Moreover, the experiences of users of PHRs in low- and middle-income co…
Exploring Factors Affecting Health Care Providers' Behaviors for Maintaining Continuity of Care in Kerala, India; A Qualitative Analysis Using the Theoretical Domains Framework
Introduction: Access to patients' documented medical information is necessary for building the informational continuity across different healthcare providers (HCP), particularly for patients with non-communicable diseases (NCD). Patient-held health records (PHR) such as NCD notebooks have important documented medical information, which can contribute to informational continuity in the outpatient settings for patients with diabetes and hypertensio…
Material Environments and the Shaping of Anorexic Embodiment
Anorexia nervosa is a paradoxical disorder, regarded across disciplines as a body project and yet also an illness of disembodied subjectivity. This overlooks the role that material environments—including objects and spaces—play in producing embodied experiences of anorexia both within and outside treatment. To address this gap, this paper draws together two ethnographic studies of anorexia to explore the shared themes unearthed by research partic…
Urban precarity and youth mental health
How active can preschoolers be at home? Parents' and grandparents' perceptions of children's day-to-day activity, with implications for physical activity policy
Attending to the full spectrum of children's movements highlights how children's activities interlink with family routines, available indoor and outdoor spaces, and the intended uses of these spaces. These interplays between space, care, and physical activity enacted at the household level should inform an integrated, systems-level public health approach to increasing health and well-being for preschool-age children. Suggestions for improvement i…
Exploring attributions of causality for child undernutrition
Child undernutrition is responsible for 45% of all under-five deaths in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and numerous morbidities. Although progress has been made, high levels of child undernutrition persist in Zambia. Existing studies have explored primary caretakers' (PCs) explanatory models of child undernutrition in LMICs, without comparison with those of health care providers (HCPs). This paper examines and compares the perceived cau…
The Impact of Covid-19 on Young People’s Mental Health in the UK
There is increasing evidence of the psychological impact of COVID-19 on various population groups, with concern particularly focused on young people's mental health. However, few papers have engaged with the views of young people themselves. We present findings from a study into young people's discussions on social media about the impact of COVID-19 on their mental health. Real-time, multi-platform online ethnography was used to collect social me…
For what it's worth. Unearthing the values embedded in digital phenotyping for mental health
Digital phenotyping for mental health is an emerging trend which uses digital data, derived from mobile applications, wearable technologies and digital sensors, to measure, track and predict the mental health of an individual. Digital phenotyping for mental health is a growing, but as yet underexamined, field. As we will show, the rapid growth of digital phenotyping for mental health raises crucial questions about the values that underpin and are…
Online harms or benefits? An ethnographic analysis of the positives and negatives of peer‐support around self‐harm on social media
BACKGROUND: There is emerging evidence of the potentially detrimental impact of social media on young people's mental health. Against this background, online self-harm content has been a recent focus of concern across academia, policy and the media. It has been argued to encourage or even cause acts such as self-cutting through mechanisms of contagion. However, little is known about why a young person might engage with such content or about its i…
Corporeal Consumption
Research Article| November 01 2020 Corporeal Consumption: Materiality, Agency, and Resistance in Body/World Encounters Anna Lavis; Anna Lavis Anna Lavis is a medical anthropologist at the University of Birmingham. Her work focuses on lived experiences of mental ill health, as well as food and (disordered) eating, with conceptual emphases on ethics and practices of care, materiality, affect, and intimacy. Search for other works by this author on: …
Overlaps and Disjunctures
Eating disorder diagnoses are characterised by a pattern of disordered eating behaviour alongside symptoms such as body dissatisfaction and preoccupation with food, weight or shape (APA in Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, DSM-5, APA, Washington, DC, 2013). Incidence rates for eating disorders have increased during the last 50 years. However, epidemiological studies have suggested that such trends may not be a true representa…
Looking, But Not Listening? Theorizing the Practice and Ethics of Online Ethnography
There are debates across disciplines regarding how to research and represent digital cultures ethically. Against this background, there is a need to reflect on the practice and ethics of online ethnography. Ambiguities surrounding researcher "participation" online have led this to be equated largely with observation. This has deprivileged the act of listening in both research practice and the methodological and ethical debates that underpin this.…
Temporalities of mental distress
The Internet is increasingly used to seek support by those suffering with mental distress (Bauman, S. and Rivers, I. Mental Health and the Digital Age. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; 2015). Drawing on research on a major online peer support forum, we analyse discussions around acute distress, self-harm and suicide. The paper argues that new temporalities of mental health 'crisis' are emerging through the intersection of the immediacy of online …
Becoming fit to be a mother
The UK Channel Four reality television programmes Supersize vs Superskinny and Supersize vs Superskinny: Kids present their viewers with a stark, and supposedly educative, reforming of food practices. Pairing participants defined as underweight with others defined as morbidly obese, the programmes are premised on a so-called ‘diet swap’, in which participants consume their foils’ (either meagre or excessive) meals in order to face the supposed fo…
Not Eating or Tasting Other Ways to Live
Whilst recent discussions of anorexia nervosa have recognised key aspects of the illness experience, such as control and emotion regulation, there remains a cross-disciplinary emphasis on body image concerns as central. In dialogue with clinical, psychological and social analyses, this paper draws on ethnography and qualitative interviews with individuals diagnosed with anorexia to offer an alternative perspective. Focusing on individuals' engage…
Food, Bodies, and the “Stuff” of (Not) Eating in Anorexia
The diverse materialities that form part of lived experiences of mental ill-health and its treatment have been largely overlooked in research. Arguing that such a focus is key to enhancing understandings of eating disorders, this article engages with food-centered practices in anorexia nervosa. Against the background of work that has recognized the desire to maintain their illness among some individuals, the article suggests that holding onto ano…
Corporeal
Looked at again and again half consciously by a mind thinking of something else, any object mixes itself so profoundly with the stuff of thought that it loses its actual form and recomposes itself a little differently in an ideal shape which haunts the brain when we least expect it. (Virginia Woolf 38) From briefcases to drugs, and from boxing rings to tower blocks, this issue of M/C Journal turns its attention to the diverse materialities that m…
A desire for anorexia
Food porn, pro-anorexia and the viscerality of virtual affect
La Muse Malade', 'The Fool's Perceptions' & 'Il Furore dell'Arte
The cultural interplay of madness and genius is entrenched in, although not exclusive to, Western intellectual tradition. In order to trace both their reflection of and influence on each other, this paper seeks to rupture the alliance of these terms with their clinical 'pseudonyms' of mental illness and creativity. Drawing on preceding psychiatric research, as well as both literary criticism and anthropological theory, this paper traces the patch…
Food porn, pro-anorexia and the viscerality of virtual affect
Not Eating or Tasting Other Ways to Live
Whilst recent discussions of anorexia nervosa have recognised key aspects of the illness experience, such as control and emotion regulation, there remains a cross-disciplinary emphasis on body image concerns as central. In dialogue with clinical, psychological and social analyses, this paper draws on ethnography and qualitative interviews with individuals diagnosed with anorexia to offer an alternative perspective. Focusing on individuals' engage…
Looking, But Not Listening? Theorizing the Practice and Ethics of Online Ethnography
There are debates across disciplines regarding how to research and represent digital cultures ethically. Against this background, there is a need to reflect on the practice and ethics of online ethnography. Ambiguities surrounding researcher "participation" online have led this to be equated largely with observation. This has deprivileged the act of listening in both research practice and the methodological and ethical debates that underpin this.…
Temporalities of mental distress
The Internet is increasingly used to seek support by those suffering with mental distress (Bauman, S. and Rivers, I. Mental Health and the Digital Age. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; 2015). Drawing on research on a major online peer support forum, we analyse discussions around acute distress, self-harm and suicide. The paper argues that new temporalities of mental health 'crisis' are emerging through the intersection of the immediacy of online …
Food, Bodies, and the “Stuff” of (Not) Eating in Anorexia
The diverse materialities that form part of lived experiences of mental ill-health and its treatment have been largely overlooked in research. Arguing that such a focus is key to enhancing understandings of eating disorders, this article engages with food-centered practices in anorexia nervosa. Against the background of work that has recognized the desire to maintain their illness among some individuals, the article suggests that holding onto ano…
Urban precarity and youth mental health
For what it's worth. Unearthing the values embedded in digital phenotyping for mental health
Digital phenotyping for mental health is an emerging trend which uses digital data, derived from mobile applications, wearable technologies and digital sensors, to measure, track and predict the mental health of an individual. Digital phenotyping for mental health is a growing, but as yet underexamined, field. As we will show, the rapid growth of digital phenotyping for mental health raises crucial questions about the values that underpin and are…
Corporeal
Looked at again and again half consciously by a mind thinking of something else, any object mixes itself so profoundly with the stuff of thought that it loses its actual form and recomposes itself a little differently in an ideal shape which haunts the brain when we least expect it. (Virginia Woolf 38) From briefcases to drugs, and from boxing rings to tower blocks, this issue of M/C Journal turns its attention to the diverse materialities that m…
A desire for anorexia
How active can preschoolers be at home? Parents' and grandparents' perceptions of children's day-to-day activity, with implications for physical activity policy
Attending to the full spectrum of children's movements highlights how children's activities interlink with family routines, available indoor and outdoor spaces, and the intended uses of these spaces. These interplays between space, care, and physical activity enacted at the household level should inform an integrated, systems-level public health approach to increasing health and well-being for preschool-age children. Suggestions for improvement i…
Becoming fit to be a mother
The UK Channel Four reality television programmes Supersize vs Superskinny and Supersize vs Superskinny: Kids present their viewers with a stark, and supposedly educative, reforming of food practices. Pairing participants defined as underweight with others defined as morbidly obese, the programmes are premised on a so-called ‘diet swap’, in which participants consume their foils’ (either meagre or excessive) meals in order to face the supposed fo…
La Muse Malade', 'The Fool's Perceptions' & 'Il Furore dell'Arte
The cultural interplay of madness and genius is entrenched in, although not exclusive to, Western intellectual tradition. In order to trace both their reflection of and influence on each other, this paper seeks to rupture the alliance of these terms with their clinical 'pseudonyms' of mental illness and creativity. Drawing on preceding psychiatric research, as well as both literary criticism and anthropological theory, this paper traces the patch…
Food porn, pro-anorexia and the viscerality of virtual affect
Food, Bodies, and the “Stuff” of (Not) Eating in Anorexia
The diverse materialities that form part of lived experiences of mental ill-health and its treatment have been largely overlooked in research. Arguing that such a focus is key to enhancing understandings of eating disorders, this article engages with food-centered practices in anorexia nervosa. Against the background of work that has recognized the desire to maintain their illness among some individuals, the article suggests that holding onto ano…
Corporeal
Looked at again and again half consciously by a mind thinking of something else, any object mixes itself so profoundly with the stuff of thought that it loses its actual form and recomposes itself a little differently in an ideal shape which haunts the brain when we least expect it. (Virginia Woolf 38) From briefcases to drugs, and from boxing rings to tower blocks, this issue of M/C Journal turns its attention to the diverse materialities that m…
A desire for anorexia
Becoming fit to be a mother
The UK Channel Four reality television programmes Supersize vs Superskinny and Supersize vs Superskinny: Kids present their viewers with a stark, and supposedly educative, reforming of food practices. Pairing participants defined as underweight with others defined as morbidly obese, the programmes are premised on a so-called ‘diet swap’, in which participants consume their foils’ (either meagre or excessive) meals in order to face the supposed fo…
Not Eating or Tasting Other Ways to Live
Whilst recent discussions of anorexia nervosa have recognised key aspects of the illness experience, such as control and emotion regulation, there remains a cross-disciplinary emphasis on body image concerns as central. In dialogue with clinical, psychological and social analyses, this paper draws on ethnography and qualitative interviews with individuals diagnosed with anorexia to offer an alternative perspective. Focusing on individuals' engage…
Overlaps and Disjunctures
Eating disorder diagnoses are characterised by a pattern of disordered eating behaviour alongside symptoms such as body dissatisfaction and preoccupation with food, weight or shape (APA in Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, DSM-5, APA, Washington, DC, 2013). Incidence rates for eating disorders have increased during the last 50 years. However, epidemiological studies have suggested that such trends may not be a true representa…
Looking, But Not Listening? Theorizing the Practice and Ethics of Online Ethnography
There are debates across disciplines regarding how to research and represent digital cultures ethically. Against this background, there is a need to reflect on the practice and ethics of online ethnography. Ambiguities surrounding researcher "participation" online have led this to be equated largely with observation. This has deprivileged the act of listening in both research practice and the methodological and ethical debates that underpin this.…
Temporalities of mental distress
The Internet is increasingly used to seek support by those suffering with mental distress (Bauman, S. and Rivers, I. Mental Health and the Digital Age. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; 2015). Drawing on research on a major online peer support forum, we analyse discussions around acute distress, self-harm and suicide. The paper argues that new temporalities of mental health 'crisis' are emerging through the intersection of the immediacy of online …
Online harms or benefits? An ethnographic analysis of the positives and negatives of peer‐support around self‐harm on social media
BACKGROUND: There is emerging evidence of the potentially detrimental impact of social media on young people's mental health. Against this background, online self-harm content has been a recent focus of concern across academia, policy and the media. It has been argued to encourage or even cause acts such as self-cutting through mechanisms of contagion. However, little is known about why a young person might engage with such content or about its i…
Corporeal Consumption
Research Article| November 01 2020 Corporeal Consumption: Materiality, Agency, and Resistance in Body/World Encounters Anna Lavis; Anna Lavis Anna Lavis is a medical anthropologist at the University of Birmingham. Her work focuses on lived experiences of mental ill health, as well as food and (disordered) eating, with conceptual emphases on ethics and practices of care, materiality, affect, and intimacy. Search for other works by this author on: …
Exploring attributions of causality for child undernutrition
Child undernutrition is responsible for 45% of all under-five deaths in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and numerous morbidities. Although progress has been made, high levels of child undernutrition persist in Zambia. Existing studies have explored primary caretakers' (PCs) explanatory models of child undernutrition in LMICs, without comparison with those of health care providers (HCPs). This paper examines and compares the perceived cau…
The Impact of Covid-19 on Young People’s Mental Health in the UK
There is increasing evidence of the psychological impact of COVID-19 on various population groups, with concern particularly focused on young people's mental health. However, few papers have engaged with the views of young people themselves. We present findings from a study into young people's discussions on social media about the impact of COVID-19 on their mental health. Real-time, multi-platform online ethnography was used to collect social me…
For what it's worth. Unearthing the values embedded in digital phenotyping for mental health
Digital phenotyping for mental health is an emerging trend which uses digital data, derived from mobile applications, wearable technologies and digital sensors, to measure, track and predict the mental health of an individual. Digital phenotyping for mental health is a growing, but as yet underexamined, field. As we will show, the rapid growth of digital phenotyping for mental health raises crucial questions about the values that underpin and are…
Exploring Factors Affecting Health Care Providers' Behaviors for Maintaining Continuity of Care in Kerala, India; A Qualitative Analysis Using the Theoretical Domains Framework
Introduction: Access to patients' documented medical information is necessary for building the informational continuity across different healthcare providers (HCP), particularly for patients with non-communicable diseases (NCD). Patient-held health records (PHR) such as NCD notebooks have important documented medical information, which can contribute to informational continuity in the outpatient settings for patients with diabetes and hypertensio…
Material Environments and the Shaping of Anorexic Embodiment
Anorexia nervosa is a paradoxical disorder, regarded across disciplines as a body project and yet also an illness of disembodied subjectivity. This overlooks the role that material environments—including objects and spaces—play in producing embodied experiences of anorexia both within and outside treatment. To address this gap, this paper draws together two ethnographic studies of anorexia to explore the shared themes unearthed by research partic…
Urban precarity and youth mental health
How active can preschoolers be at home? Parents' and grandparents' perceptions of children's day-to-day activity, with implications for physical activity policy
Attending to the full spectrum of children's movements highlights how children's activities interlink with family routines, available indoor and outdoor spaces, and the intended uses of these spaces. These interplays between space, care, and physical activity enacted at the household level should inform an integrated, systems-level public health approach to increasing health and well-being for preschool-age children. Suggestions for improvement i…
Patients', carers' and healthcare providers' views of patient‐held health records in Kerala, India
INTRODUCTION: Poor medical information transfer across healthcare visits and providers poses a potential threat to patient safety. Patient-held health records (PHRs) may be used to facilitate informational continuity, handover communication and patient self-management. However, there are conflicting opinions on the effectiveness of PHRs, other than in maternal and child care. Moreover, the experiences of users of PHRs in low- and middle-income co…
A thematic analysis of UK Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy discussions on Twitter
This paper highlights key obstacles to COVID-19 vaccine acceptance in the UK based on views from Twitter and contributes to the emerging literature on the relationship between social media and the public response to COVID-19 vaccines. In so doing, this analysis offers insights that are useful for the development of vaccine communication strategies more broadly, both in and beyond future pandemics, to ensure that public concerns are addressed, and…
No Ethics Needed? Towards an Ethics of Care for Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement
INTRODUCTION: Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) enhances the inclusivity, relevance and responsiveness of health research for communities. Although public and patient involvement is grounded in lived experience and typically falls outside formal ethical review, ethical considerations nonetheless arise. This paper therefore examines PPIE concepts and practices through an EoC lens. METHOD: Through a thematic, iterative review of …
Exploring Barriers to Recovery Amongst Women with Psychosis
Experiencing psychosis can impact all areas of a person's life, causing significant changes to thoughts, perceptions, mood, behaviour, and sense of self. Details of the specific barriers to recovery experienced by women with psychosis and how these barriers may relate to both sex and gender remain unknown. To identify and conceptualise barriers to recovery, a qualitative secondary analysis was undertaken of 31 semi-structured interviews from a pr…
Sociology (16 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Medicine (12 works) · Political science (8 works) · Psychiatry (8 works) · Mental health (7 works) · Qualitative research (7 works) · Obesity and Health Practices (6 works) · Eating Disorders and Behaviors (5 works) · Thematic analysis (5 works)