Immigration and Health Initiative (IAHI)

Slide Show

This is a slide show produced by the Immigration and Health Initiative for the November 3rd 2005 symposium on Alternative Healing Systems. This is a 6 minute quicktime movie.

Download slideshow.mov (Quicktime movie, +- 14 MB)

Tango Immigrants in New York City by Anahi Viladrich

The recent global renaissance of tango dancing has been accompanied
by the emergence of a thriving tango economy in New York City (NYC)
that has encouraged the arrival of Argentine tango dancers and amateurs
artists (tango immigrants) in recent years. This article builds on
social capital theory to examine the importance of the Manhattan tango
world as a reservoir for social resources (e.g., health information, contact
for jobs, referrals) to satisfy their members’social and health needs.
Tango immigrants seek informal access to health care through the assistance
of health practitioners belonging to their tango networks (tango
brokers), a relevant issue given the fact that many artists are uninsured
and depend on their physical labor to perform. This article’s ultimate
goal is aimed at providing a theoretical contribution to our understanding
of contemporary entertainment forms as ethnic social niches for
immigrants’ informal access to valued resources via interpersonal
relationships.

Keywords: social capital; social niches; immigrants; access to health
care; Argentina; tango

Download the full article (pdf)

AAA Newsletter

Section News
Society for Urban, National and
Transnational/Global Anthropology

Latino Healers Project
Anahi Viladrich, a medical anthropologist and director of the Immigration and Health Initiative, sponsored by the urban public health program of the School of Health Sciences at Hunter College, and her team of ethnographers including Antonella Fabri, Jasmine Gartner, Vincent Goldberg, Joel Naatus, Helga Perez, Martha Rodriguez and Lori Bukiewicz have recently launched an ethnographic project entitled “Latino Healers Treating Latino Immigrants.” The goal of the project is to examine the role of Latino healers as informal health care providers to the growing number of Latino immigrants in NYC. This past spring and summer Anahi and her team began mapping the “hidden” world of Latino folk healers (ranging from herberos to Santeros), gathering ethnographic data on folk healers’ careers, beliefs and therapeutic practices. Healers work either via private consultations or at botanicas, unique ethnic enterprises that sell and provide healing, religious and spiritual services to the larger Latino community.

See pictures here

Viladrich's Ethnography

This article, based on the first ethnographic study on the Argentine minority
in New York City, addresses some of the conflicting issues emerging from
ethnographers’ involvement with research populations to which they
belong, including the implications of being perceived as members of the
same “flock.” The article explores participants’ self-representations in terms
of class and racial and/or ethnic categories vis-à-vis others including the
ethnographer, also from Argentine origin. The Whiteness strategyand the
cultural divide were two important discursive tools that allowed lighter-skinned
study participants to place themselves closer to the White majority,
while challenging their perceived socioeconomic dislocation in main-stream
America. The ethnographer’s self-representation in the field was
also characterized by tensions and adjustments, which relied on the
exchange of social resources (social capital) as the unexpected backdrop
for trust and reciprocity to be continuously negotiated.

Keywords: immigrants in the United States; Latinos; Argentina; auto-ethnography; race and ethnicity; class; downward mobility

Download full text here (pdf)

Mental Health Conference

To download Dr. Viladrich's presentation please click here (pdf).

See photo gallery here

Viladrich's Presentation

Download viladrichs_presentation.pdf

SANA Conference 2006

On April 21st Dr. Anahí Viladrich and research assistant María Gómez participated in the SANA Conference 2006 "Anthropology in an Uncertain Age" with this paper:

THE ETHNOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTER: ROLE REVERSALS AND THE CHALLENGE TO THE INTERVIEWER'S ROLE.

Abstract

In recent years, the literature on reflexive ethnography has focused on understanding the role of emotions and inter-subjectivity in shaping the exchanges between researchers and study participants. Contesting power dynamics has been at the center of most feminist ethnography, which has conspicuously explored the role of class, gender and race-ethnicity in the social exchanges that take place during the ethnographic process.

Nevertheless, a paucity of research exists on the role of interviewees who defy their own position as "informants" by becoming interviewers themselves.
The paper addresses the phenomenon of dynamic resistance through which Latino healers challenge their position as informants, while participating in a study on “Latino folk healing practices” in NYC.

This presentation questions traditional research models by suggesting that in order to achieve a deeper understanding of interactive healing practices, interviewers must surrender, at least partially, to their informants' active role as empowered counselors and impromptu interviewers.

You can download the Power Point presentation here

Click here  for pictures of the event.

Acknowledgements

This multi-level program is sponsored by the Schools of the Health Professions, Hunter College of the City University of  New York.

The Immigration and Health Initiative acknowledges the generous funding of the Rousseau Gift, and of several research awards by PSC-CUNY and by the CUNY Collaborative Incentive Grants.

Building Bridges Between Adult Education, Public Schools, And Health Care by Jana Sladkova, Anahí Viladrich and Nicholas Freudenberg

Download Building_Bridges.pdf

Performing The Tango's Dual Life: Immigrant Tales From The Field by Anahi Viladrich

Download article2.pdf