Willen
Biographic Data
| ID | 17613 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Willen |
| FAMILY NAME | Willen |
| SIGNATURE | WILLEN |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Connecticut |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0827-0510 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 614 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Respondent Comments for Marshall Sklare Award Keynote by Professor Uzi Rebhun
Who gets to define flourishing? Disentangling social science from theology in flourishing measurement and policy prescriptions
In this essay, we advance a conversation initiated on these pages by the recent special issue on “Flourishing and Health in Critical Perspective: An Invitation to Interdisciplinary Dialogue” (Willen, 2022; Willen, Williamson, and Walsh 2022), followed by a response from VanderWeele and the Human Flourishing Program team (VanderWeele et al., 2023). We were pleased to learn of their agreement with several of the concerns we raised — among them the …
It’s not where we are, it’s who we’re near
Cyberspatial agency
In this article, we show how the COVID-19 pandemic facilitated experimentation with gender expression via a process that we call cyberspatial agency . During the pandemic in the United States, millions of people were simultaneously physically isolated from one another while also experiencing an unprecedented level of digital hyper-connectedness. In avoiding the public gaze while also having the ability to carefully curate the online communities w…
Efficient spatial separation of charge carriers over Sv-ZnIn2S4/NH2-MIL-88B(Fe) S-scheme heterojunctions for enhanced photocatalytic H2 evolution and antibiotics removal performance
The exploration of highly efficient sunlight-assisted photocatalyst for photodegradation of organic contaminants or energy conversion is strongly encouraged. In this work, we designed a novel three-dimensional spindle-like Sv-ZIS@NMFe heterojunction made of amino functionalized NH 2 -MIL-88B(Fe) (NMFe) and ZnIn 2 S 4 nanosheets with abundant sulfur vacancies (Sv-ZIS). The structural properties of NMFe materials, such as a clearly defined system o…
Assembling vaccine perspectives
Cultivating Voice and Solidarity in Times of Crisis
Ethnographic journaling can provide students with powerful opportunities to recognize and value their individual and collective perspectives as both observers and analysts of the world around them, especially in times of crisis. In this Perspectives essay, we share our experiences of using the Pandemic Journaling Project platform as a teaching resource in the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. We consider various aspects of online e…
Engaging Immigrant Women in Online Journaling as a Mode of Research and Psychosocial Support
Online journaling is a methodological tool that has also been shown to have therapeutic benefits for some populations. However, the potential value - and limitations - of online journaling within immigrant communities remain underexplored. We present a proof-of-concept analysis exploring the efficacy and feasibility of engaging immigrant women in an online journaling project. We report on a study that used online journaling as an approach to expl…
I want the world back
Psychology has tended to conceptualize loneliness as a lack of intimate and social relationships. This analysis draws on the journal entries of 100 participants in the Pandemic Journaling Project (PJP; a research study and online journaling platform that invited participants to chronicle their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic) to illustrate a more foundational sense of loneliness as a lack of bodily attunement, interaction, and intersecti…
Introduction
Flourishing and health in critical perspective
Introduction
In this article, we introduce the SSM-MH Special Issue “Journaling and Mental Health during COVID-19: Insights from the Pandemic Journaling Project,” which presents findings from the Pandemic Journaling Project (PJP). PJP is an online journaling platform and mixed-methods research study created in May 2020 to provide ordinary people around the world an opportunity to chronicle the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in their lives—for themselves and …
“Languishing” in critical perspective
As the COVID-19 pandemic entered its second year, the New York Times published a column offering readers a name for its negative impact on mental health and well-being: “languishing.” Originally developed by positive psychologists, the term was designed to capture a sense of distress involving feelings of emptiness, stagnation, and lack of motivation that fall short of clinical significance. The column struck so strong a chord with readers that i…
Rethinking flourishing
In recent years, human flourishing and its relationship to mental health have attracted significant attention in a wide range of fields. As an interdisciplinary, mixed-methods team with strong roots in critical medical anthropology and critical public health, we are intrigued by the possibility that a focus on flourishing may reinvigorate health research, policy, and clinical care in transformative ways. Yet current proposals to this effect, we c…
Shouldering the load yet again
Flourishing
Health and the capacity to flourish are deeply intertwined. For members of vulnerable migrant groups, systemic inequalities and structural forms of marginalisation and exclusion create health risks, impede access to needed care and interfere with the ability to achieve one’s full potential. Migrants often have limited access to healthcare, and they frequently are portrayed as less deserving than others of the resources needed to lead a healthy an…
Deservingness
This article brings the social science concept of ‘deservingness’ to bear on clinical cases of transnational migrant patients. Based on the authors’ medical social science research, health delivery practice and clinical work from multiple locations in Africa. Europe and the Americas, the article describes three clinical cases in which assumptions of deservingness have significant implications for the morbidity and mortality of migrant patients. T…
Visualizing Health Equity
BACKGROUND: Health educators and advocacy groups often use side-by-side visual images to communicate about equity and to distinguish it from equality. Despite the near-ubiquity of these images, little is known about how they are understood by different audiences. AIMS: To assess the effectiveness of an image commonly used to communicate about health equity. METHOD: In 167 interviews with health stakeholders in Greater Cleveland, Ohio, in 2018 to …
Ukuphumelela
What does it mean to live a flourishing life in Soweto? This article investigates how people residing in Soweto, located in South Africa's Gauteng province, define, experience, and express flourishing both on its own and in relation to health. We interviewed 30 people who had expressed some interest in flourishing and health in a previous interview, and found that the IsiZulu term ukuphumelela – roughly translated as “becoming victorious” – best …
On Exclusionary Violence and Its Subcutaneous Consequences
H uman R ights and H ealth
Health‐related inequity is a long‐standing concern in anthropology, yet anthropologists have only recently, and tentatively, begun approaching the issue through a human rights lens. Medical anthropologists, in particular, have found in human rights a provocative way of responding to health inequities, violations, and injustices. As interdisciplinary conversations about health and human rights have begun to flourish in recent decades, anthropologi…
Syndemic vulnerability and the right to health
Migration as a social determinant of health for irregular migrants
Lightning Rods in the Local Moral Economy
Localized debates about who unauthorized migrants are and what they do, or do not, deserve unfold in a culturally specific register that is deeply charged with emotion and moral valuation. Structuring such debates are vernacular discursive frames that emerge from, and reflect, a common “local moral economy.” Taking Israel as case study, this article examines six elements of the country's local moral economy – biopolitical logic, historical memory…
Plotting a Moral Trajectory, Sans Papiers
This essay peers into the swirling, tumultuous lifeworld of Marlene, an unauthorized Filipina migrant living in Israel, and her extraordinary capacity for self-preservation and creative sociality to consider several key questions. First, in empirical terms, how might the particular form of abjection Marlene confronts-migrant "illegality"-influence the texture and contour of her existential and moral reality? Second, how do migrants like Marlene, …
"Toward a Critical Phenomenology of "Illegality
Given the vast scope and magnitude of the phenomenon of so-called "illegal" migration in the present historical moment, this article contends that phenomenologically engaged ethnography has a crucial role to play in sensitizing not only anthropologists, but also policymakers, politicians, and broader publics to the complicated, often anxiety-ridden and frightening realities associated with "the condition of migrant illegality," both of specific h…
How is health-related "deservingness" reckoned? Perspectives from unauthorized im/migrants in Tel Aviv
Migration, "illegality," and health
Do "Illegal" Im/migrants Have a Right to Health? Engaging Ethical Theory as Social Practice at a Tel Aviv Open Clinic
As the notion of a "right to health" gains influence, it is increasingly deployed in ways that are diverse, contextually variable, and at times logically inconsistent. Drawing on extended fieldwork at an Israeli human rights organization that advocates for "illegal" migrants and other vulnerable groups, this article contends that medical anthropologists cannot simply rally behind this right. Instead, we must take it as an object of ethnographic a…
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, …
Plotting a Moral Trajectory, Sans Papiers
This essay peers into the swirling, tumultuous lifeworld of Marlene, an unauthorized Filipina migrant living in Israel, and her extraordinary capacity for self-preservation and creative sociality to consider several key questions. First, in empirical terms, how might the particular form of abjection Marlene confronts-migrant "illegality"-influence the texture and contour of her existential and moral reality? Second, how do migrants like Marlene, …
Birthing ?Invisible? Children
Sarah S. Willen, Birthing "Invisible" Children: State Power, NGO Activism, and Reproductive Health among "Illegal Migrant" Workers in Tel Aviv, Israel, Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Spring, 2005), pp. 55-88
Introduction
In recent decades, human experience has become focus or frame for a wide variety of projects in psychological anthropology and beyond. Like "culture," which it arguably seeks to either qualify or displace, the concept of "experience" has generated its own interpretive literature, competing schools of analysis, and internal resistances. We propose that the anthropology of experience has achieved a degree of recognition and maturity that renders ge…
Exploring “Illegal” and “Irregular” Migrants' Lived Experiences of Law and State Power
Lightning Rods in the Local Moral Economy
Localized debates about who unauthorized migrants are and what they do, or do not, deserve unfold in a culturally specific register that is deeply charged with emotion and moral valuation. Structuring such debates are vernacular discursive frames that emerge from, and reflect, a common “local moral economy.” Taking Israel as case study, this article examines six elements of the country's local moral economy – biopolitical logic, historical memory…
Migration as a social determinant of health for irregular migrants
I want the world back
Psychology has tended to conceptualize loneliness as a lack of intimate and social relationships. This analysis draws on the journal entries of 100 participants in the Pandemic Journaling Project (PJP; a research study and online journaling platform that invited participants to chronicle their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic) to illustrate a more foundational sense of loneliness as a lack of bodily attunement, interaction, and intersecti…
Perspectives on labour migration in Israel
The Setting: Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station, "capital of the foreign workers" 1 Half a century after the establishment of the State of Israel, a stranger meandering through Tel Aviv's labyrinthian, seven-story Central Bus Station would be surprised to hear not just Hebrew, or even just Israel's recognized languages of Hebrew and Arabic, Russian and Amharic, but rather a global cacophony of languages: Tagalog and Romanian, Nigerian languages like …
On Exclusionary Violence and Its Subcutaneous Consequences
Cyberspatial agency
In this article, we show how the COVID-19 pandemic facilitated experimentation with gender expression via a process that we call cyberspatial agency . During the pandemic in the United States, millions of people were simultaneously physically isolated from one another while also experiencing an unprecedented level of digital hyper-connectedness. In avoiding the public gaze while also having the ability to carefully curate the online communities w…
Perspectives on labour migration in Israel
The Setting: Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station, "capital of the foreign workers" 1 Half a century after the establishment of the State of Israel, a stranger meandering through Tel Aviv's labyrinthian, seven-story Central Bus Station would be surprised to hear not just Hebrew, or even just Israel's recognized languages of Hebrew and Arabic, Russian and Amharic, but rather a global cacophony of languages: Tagalog and Romanian, Nigerian languages like …
Birthing “Invisible” Children
Research Article| July 01 2005 Birthing “Invisible” Children: State Power, Ngo Activism, and Reproductive Health Among “Illegal Migrant” Workers in Tel Aviv, Israel Sarah S. Willen Sarah S. Willen Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Middle East Women's Studies (2005) 1 (2): 55–88. https://doi.org/10.1215/15525864-2005-2003 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Revi…
Birthing ?Invisible? Children
Sarah S. Willen, Birthing "Invisible" Children: State Power, NGO Activism, and Reproductive Health among "Illegal Migrant" Workers in Tel Aviv, Israel, Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Spring, 2005), pp. 55-88
Exploring “Illegal” and “Irregular” Migrants' Lived Experiences of Law and State Power
"Toward a Critical Phenomenology of "Illegality
Given the vast scope and magnitude of the phenomenon of so-called "illegal" migration in the present historical moment, this article contends that phenomenologically engaged ethnography has a crucial role to play in sensitizing not only anthropologists, but also policymakers, politicians, and broader publics to the complicated, often anxiety-ridden and frightening realities associated with "the condition of migrant illegality," both of specific h…
L’hyperpolitique du « Plus jamais ça
Depuis le début de l’année 2007, près de 10 000 hommes, femmes et enfants africains – pour la plupart originaires du Darfour, du Sud Soudan et de l’Erythrée – ont traversé la longue et poreuse frontière égypto-israélienne, et ont demandé l’asile aux portes méridionales du territoire israélien. En Israël, ces arrivées ont fait l’objet d’une grande attention, d’importantes controverses et mobilisations, face auxquelles la réaction de l’Etat s’est c…
Social bodies – Edited by Helen Lambert & Maryon McDonald
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, …
Do "Illegal" Im/migrants Have a Right to Health? Engaging Ethical Theory as Social Practice at a Tel Aviv Open Clinic
As the notion of a "right to health" gains influence, it is increasingly deployed in ways that are diverse, contextually variable, and at times logically inconsistent. Drawing on extended fieldwork at an Israeli human rights organization that advocates for "illegal" migrants and other vulnerable groups, this article contends that medical anthropologists cannot simply rally behind this right. Instead, we must take it as an object of ethnographic a…
Anthropology and Human Rights
How is health-related "deservingness" reckoned? Perspectives from unauthorized im/migrants in Tel Aviv
Migration, "illegality," and health
Introduction
In recent decades, human experience has become focus or frame for a wide variety of projects in psychological anthropology and beyond. Like "culture," which it arguably seeks to either qualify or displace, the concept of "experience" has generated its own interpretive literature, competing schools of analysis, and internal resistances. We propose that the anthropology of experience has achieved a degree of recognition and maturity that renders ge…
Cultural Competence in Action
Confronting a “Big Huge Gaping Wound”
Lightning Rods in the Local Moral Economy
Localized debates about who unauthorized migrants are and what they do, or do not, deserve unfold in a culturally specific register that is deeply charged with emotion and moral valuation. Structuring such debates are vernacular discursive frames that emerge from, and reflect, a common “local moral economy.” Taking Israel as case study, this article examines six elements of the country's local moral economy – biopolitical logic, historical memory…
Plotting a Moral Trajectory, Sans Papiers
This essay peers into the swirling, tumultuous lifeworld of Marlene, an unauthorized Filipina migrant living in Israel, and her extraordinary capacity for self-preservation and creative sociality to consider several key questions. First, in empirical terms, how might the particular form of abjection Marlene confronts-migrant "illegality"-influence the texture and contour of her existential and moral reality? Second, how do migrants like Marlene, …
Migration as a social determinant of health for irregular migrants
Syndemic vulnerability and the right to health
H uman R ights and H ealth
Health‐related inequity is a long‐standing concern in anthropology, yet anthropologists have only recently, and tentatively, begun approaching the issue through a human rights lens. Medical anthropologists, in particular, have found in human rights a provocative way of responding to health inequities, violations, and injustices. As interdisciplinary conversations about health and human rights have begun to flourish in recent decades, anthropologi…
Flourishing
Health and the capacity to flourish are deeply intertwined. For members of vulnerable migrant groups, systemic inequalities and structural forms of marginalisation and exclusion create health risks, impede access to needed care and interfere with the ability to achieve one’s full potential. Migrants often have limited access to healthcare, and they frequently are portrayed as less deserving than others of the resources needed to lead a healthy an…
Deservingness
This article brings the social science concept of ‘deservingness’ to bear on clinical cases of transnational migrant patients. Based on the authors’ medical social science research, health delivery practice and clinical work from multiple locations in Africa. Europe and the Americas, the article describes three clinical cases in which assumptions of deservingness have significant implications for the morbidity and mortality of migrant patients. T…
Visualizing Health Equity
BACKGROUND: Health educators and advocacy groups often use side-by-side visual images to communicate about equity and to distinguish it from equality. Despite the near-ubiquity of these images, little is known about how they are understood by different audiences. AIMS: To assess the effectiveness of an image commonly used to communicate about health equity. METHOD: In 167 interviews with health stakeholders in Greater Cleveland, Ohio, in 2018 to …
Ukuphumelela
What does it mean to live a flourishing life in Soweto? This article investigates how people residing in Soweto, located in South Africa's Gauteng province, define, experience, and express flourishing both on its own and in relation to health. We interviewed 30 people who had expressed some interest in flourishing and health in a previous interview, and found that the IsiZulu term ukuphumelela – roughly translated as “becoming victorious” – best …
On Exclusionary Violence and Its Subcutaneous Consequences
Political science (25 works) · Sociology (24 works) · Medicine (19 works) · Psychology (19 works) · Law (12 works) · Migration, Health and Trauma (12 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (10 works) · Criminology (9 works) · Computer Science (7 works)