Kathryn A. Rhine
Areas of Interest: Sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria), HIV/AIDS, Pharmaceuticals, Gender and the Life Course, Divorce and Widowhood, Anthropological Demography, Medical Anthropology.
Status: Post Field
Dissertation Research: My doctoral dissertation entitled, AIDS, Marriage, and the Management of Ambiguity in Northern Nigeria, questions the ways in which technologies and pharmaceuticals transform the definition of what it means to be human and the ways in which they reinforce conceptions of personhood and forms of sociality. I commenced this research in 2002 at the advent of the widespread rollout of antiretroviral therapies across Nigeria, and have now spent over two and a half years conducting in-depth ethnographic fieldwork among HIV-positive women, supported by fellowships from Fulbright (IIE), Fulbright-Hays, and NSF, among others. In my dissertation, I argue that, while counseling, testing, and treatment programs have profoundly altered the illness trajectories of Nigeria’s HIV-infected population, the restoration of their social trajectories are shaped by established gender roles and kinship expectations, and the local moral economies and frameworks of meaning that inform them. Across the domains of biomedicine, biosocial groupings, and networks of kin, my study reveals the multiple ways in which these moral economies intersect with women’s health.
MA Thesis: The (Re) Marriage and Reproductive Decisions of HIV-Positive Women in Northern Nigeria
Previous Degrees: B.A., Anthropology, The George Washington University
Contact Information: Kathryn_Rhine@Brown.edu
Homepage address: http://web.mac.com/katierhine
