Suchergebnisse

The current global food crisis can be, in part, described as an outcome of not only historical patterns of income inequalities and long‐standing food trade policies biased in favor of wealthier nations but also in terms of significant reductions in food aid and other safety‐net programs for people living in poor nations. Despite the serious nature of the problem of food insecurity, only a limited amount of reliable descriptive research, especially at the community level, has explored the causes and consequences of the current food crisis. Anthropology offers a unique set of methodological and theoretical approaches that can be useful for designing, implementing, and evaluating programs and policies aimed at alleviating poverty and reducing food insecurity. Anthropologically informed research can provide a dynamic understanding of food insecurity in terms of its causes and consequences and its local, regional, and global underpinnings. This information can be helpful in incorporating a community‐level understanding of the "local" determinants of food insecurity for developing effective and sustainable food policy and intervention programs.

ABSTRACT  Anthropology as a discipline over the past four decades has attracted increasingly more students studying at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. At the same time, the career expectations of many students have shifted from a primary focus on full‐time academic positions to a multitude of types of positions in the public and private sectors. Many of these positions are in the area of practicing, applied, and public interest anthropology. An essential aspect of the education of students headed for such careers is the experience of working in community‐based and "engaged scholarly endeavors." The availability of such experiences for students depends, in part, on the tenure and promotion process for faculty. For this review, we have examined tenure and promotion guidelines from five universities with a commitment to educating students in practicing, applied, and public interest anthropology.

In Nyanza Province, Kenya, estimated HIV prevalence is 22%. Given that more than 80% of the population resides in rural areas, the majority of individuals in Nyanza Province do not have access to medical facilities on a regular basis. In response to the growing demands the HIV epidemic has placed on the people and communities in this region, hundreds of lay individuals have been trained as community health workers to provide home-based care to sick or dying HIV/AIDS clients in rural areas. This paper discusses the role and impact of these community health workers in Nyanza Province, Kenya. It outlines the collaborative relationship between community health workers and the Ministry of Health, examining community health workers' use of extant biomedical structures at the district level to provide services that government-run health facilities lack the monetary resources or personnel to provide. Finally, it explores the role played by community health workers in providing HIV/AIDS education to individuals in an attempt to prevent further infections.