Alexandra Widmer
Biographic Data
| ID | 134181 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alexandra Widmer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alexandra |
| FAMILY NAME | Widmer |
| SIGNATURE | WIDMER A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Max Planck Institute for the History of Science |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3013-7900 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
A World of Populations
Demographic study and the idea of a “population” was developed and modified over the course of the twentieth century, mirroring the political, social, and cultural situations and aspirations of different societies. This growing field adapted itself to specific policy concerns and was therefore never apolitical, despite the protestations of practitioners that demography was “natural.” Demographics were transformed into public policies that shaped …
Reproducing Life in Conditions of Abandonment in Oceania
Despite technical and legal innovations for certain groups’ reproduction, many people’s reproductive concerns and choices remain disparaged or unsupported. We call this assemblage ‘reproductive abandonment’ and present aspects of these conditions in this special issue. ‘Abandonment’ highlights the failure of ‘relationality’, a Pacific value and ontology that emphasises the importance of being in relations of obligation, accountability and respect…
Health and Medicine during and after the Pacific War
Locating low-protein life
Can bodies be healthy if consuming scant amounts of protein? To answer this in the 1960s, nutrition researchers, working through the Australian Institute of Anatomy and South Pacific Commission rendered food cultures into research variables to compare the metabolisms of research participants living in different food systems and economies (subsistence and wage) in the south-western Pacific Islands. Their research on certain Pacific Islanders’ high…
Positioning Human Microbiome DTC Tests On the Search for Health, Data and Alternatives Amid the Financialisation of Life
Early during my fieldwork on the social life of the microbiome in Toronto, I was asked 'Do you believe in microbiome testing?' This question invited me to evaluate the science of the direct-to-consumer (DTC) test. In this Position Piece, I consider this question in a more expansive manner so as to position the test in its social and economic context. The distribution and public uptake of such a DTC test require scientific expertise but also marke…
Sharks Upon the Land
"Sharks Upon the Land: Colonialism, Indigenous Health and Culture in Hawai‘i, 1778–1855." The Journal of Pacific History, 54(2), pp. 284–285
Order of the Magic Lantern Slides
Dr Sylvester Lambert, an American public health doctor who worked for the International Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation, created a magic lantern slide presentation to retell the arrest of a sorcerer that he had witnessed in 1925 on the island of Malakula in Vanuatu. In this article, I use creative non-fiction to envision other audiences and narrators of this storied event to present an expanded picture of life for Pacific Islanders at …
Making blood ‘Melanesian’
The Imbalanced Sex Ratio and the High Bride Price
This article examines changes and continuities in the epistemic and methodological presence of "race" in British imperial demography from 1920 to 1960. It does so in relation to population-level interventions aimed at improving reproduction in the New Hebrides. Through an examination of the sex ratio in relation to debates about demographic decline, the article describes aspects of how sexual selection was connected to race thinking. Taking a bal…
Medical Anthropology at the Intersections
Reviewed by: Medical Anthropology at the Intersections: Histories, Activisms, and Futures ed. by Marcia C. Inhorn and Emily A. Wentzell Alexandra Widmer Marcia C. Inhorn and Emily A. Wentzell, eds. Medical Anthropology at the Intersections: Histories, Activisms, and Futures. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2012. viii + 342 pp. Ill. $25.95 (978-0-8223-5270-9). Taking the passing of three pathbreaking medical anthropologists as a moment for re…
Diversity as valued and troubled
This paper deals with the simultaneous mainstreaming and diversification of ni-Vanuatu social categories associated with the ways in which population growth is understood as a possible crisis in both demographic knowledge and everyday ni-Vanuatu knowledge. The author is interested in understanding the downplaying but primarily the amplification of difference with respect to place, generation and gender identities. The relationship between reprodu…
Native Medical Practitioners, Temporality, and Nascent Biomedical Citizenship in the New Hebrides
While governing the New Hebrides from 1906 to1980, a British‐French Condominium hired Pacific Islanders who had been trained in Fiji as Native Medical Practitioners (NMPs), to deliver primary health care and to offer public health education to the declining indigenous population. The NMPs’ medical work was also expected to expand colonial governance in a culturally diverse archipelago with no prior centralized state. Focusing on the 1920s through…
The Effects of Elusive Knowledge
In this article, I discuss two roles of documents in the creation and enforcement of public health laws in early colonial Vanuatu and their implication in colonial attempts to transform ni-Vanuatu societies and subjectivities. Colonial officials of the British-French Condominium based their projects on their admittedly partial knowledge in reports generated by experts studying depopulation. This knowledge, I argue, produced a ‘population’ by cate…
Making blood ‘Melanesian’
Diversity as valued and troubled
This paper deals with the simultaneous mainstreaming and diversification of ni-Vanuatu social categories associated with the ways in which population growth is understood as a possible crisis in both demographic knowledge and everyday ni-Vanuatu knowledge. The author is interested in understanding the downplaying but primarily the amplification of difference with respect to place, generation and gender identities. The relationship between reprodu…
The Effects of Elusive Knowledge
In this article, I discuss two roles of documents in the creation and enforcement of public health laws in early colonial Vanuatu and their implication in colonial attempts to transform ni-Vanuatu societies and subjectivities. Colonial officials of the British-French Condominium based their projects on their admittedly partial knowledge in reports generated by experts studying depopulation. This knowledge, I argue, produced a ‘population’ by cate…
The Imbalanced Sex Ratio and the High Bride Price
This article examines changes and continuities in the epistemic and methodological presence of "race" in British imperial demography from 1920 to 1960. It does so in relation to population-level interventions aimed at improving reproduction in the New Hebrides. Through an examination of the sex ratio in relation to debates about demographic decline, the article describes aspects of how sexual selection was connected to race thinking. Taking a bal…
The Effects of Elusive Knowledge
In this article, I discuss two roles of documents in the creation and enforcement of public health laws in early colonial Vanuatu and their implication in colonial attempts to transform ni-Vanuatu societies and subjectivities. Colonial officials of the British-French Condominium based their projects on their admittedly partial knowledge in reports generated by experts studying depopulation. This knowledge, I argue, produced a ‘population’ by cate…
Native Medical Practitioners, Temporality, and Nascent Biomedical Citizenship in the New Hebrides
While governing the New Hebrides from 1906 to1980, a British‐French Condominium hired Pacific Islanders who had been trained in Fiji as Native Medical Practitioners (NMPs), to deliver primary health care and to offer public health education to the declining indigenous population. The NMPs’ medical work was also expected to expand colonial governance in a culturally diverse archipelago with no prior centralized state. Focusing on the 1920s through…
Medical Anthropology at the Intersections
Reviewed by: Medical Anthropology at the Intersections: Histories, Activisms, and Futures ed. by Marcia C. Inhorn and Emily A. Wentzell Alexandra Widmer Marcia C. Inhorn and Emily A. Wentzell, eds. Medical Anthropology at the Intersections: Histories, Activisms, and Futures. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2012. viii + 342 pp. Ill. $25.95 (978-0-8223-5270-9). Taking the passing of three pathbreaking medical anthropologists as a moment for re…
Diversity as valued and troubled
This paper deals with the simultaneous mainstreaming and diversification of ni-Vanuatu social categories associated with the ways in which population growth is understood as a possible crisis in both demographic knowledge and everyday ni-Vanuatu knowledge. The author is interested in understanding the downplaying but primarily the amplification of difference with respect to place, generation and gender identities. The relationship between reprodu…
Making blood ‘Melanesian’
The Imbalanced Sex Ratio and the High Bride Price
This article examines changes and continuities in the epistemic and methodological presence of "race" in British imperial demography from 1920 to 1960. It does so in relation to population-level interventions aimed at improving reproduction in the New Hebrides. Through an examination of the sex ratio in relation to debates about demographic decline, the article describes aspects of how sexual selection was connected to race thinking. Taking a bal…
Sharks Upon the Land
"Sharks Upon the Land: Colonialism, Indigenous Health and Culture in Hawai‘i, 1778–1855." The Journal of Pacific History, 54(2), pp. 284–285
Order of the Magic Lantern Slides
Dr Sylvester Lambert, an American public health doctor who worked for the International Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation, created a magic lantern slide presentation to retell the arrest of a sorcerer that he had witnessed in 1925 on the island of Malakula in Vanuatu. In this article, I use creative non-fiction to envision other audiences and narrators of this storied event to present an expanded picture of life for Pacific Islanders at …
Health and Medicine during and after the Pacific War
Locating low-protein life
Can bodies be healthy if consuming scant amounts of protein? To answer this in the 1960s, nutrition researchers, working through the Australian Institute of Anatomy and South Pacific Commission rendered food cultures into research variables to compare the metabolisms of research participants living in different food systems and economies (subsistence and wage) in the south-western Pacific Islands. Their research on certain Pacific Islanders’ high…
Positioning Human Microbiome DTC Tests On the Search for Health, Data and Alternatives Amid the Financialisation of Life
Early during my fieldwork on the social life of the microbiome in Toronto, I was asked 'Do you believe in microbiome testing?' This question invited me to evaluate the science of the direct-to-consumer (DTC) test. In this Position Piece, I consider this question in a more expansive manner so as to position the test in its social and economic context. The distribution and public uptake of such a DTC test require scientific expertise but also marke…
A World of Populations
Demographic study and the idea of a “population” was developed and modified over the course of the twentieth century, mirroring the political, social, and cultural situations and aspirations of different societies. This growing field adapted itself to specific policy concerns and was therefore never apolitical, despite the protestations of practitioners that demography was “natural.” Demographics were transformed into public policies that shaped …
Reproducing Life in Conditions of Abandonment in Oceania
Despite technical and legal innovations for certain groups’ reproduction, many people’s reproductive concerns and choices remain disparaged or unsupported. We call this assemblage ‘reproductive abandonment’ and present aspects of these conditions in this special issue. ‘Abandonment’ highlights the failure of ‘relationality’, a Pacific value and ontology that emphasises the importance of being in relations of obligation, accountability and respect…
Sociology (12 works) · Political science (9 works) · Population (9 works) · Biology (7 works) · Anthropology (6 works) · Colonialism (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Politics (5 works) · Demography (4 works) · Ecology (4 works)