Janelle S. Taylor (PhD 1999, Chicago)
Research Interests:
Technology, gender, feminist theory, medicine and medical education, reproduction, commodification and consumer culture, science studies; US
“As a medical anthropologist, I bring the methods and concepts of sociocultural anthropology to bear upon the study of health, illness, and medicine. Sociocultural anthropology proceeds from the fundamental insight and premise that meaning is embedded in collective social action: meaning is something that people create through social action, and the meanings that people make shape the actions that they take, and thus have very real material and social consequences. Ethnography is a disciplined methodology ideally suited for producing understanding of people's words and deeds by placing them into context -- situating them within local systems of meaning, and/or within relations of power. I take inspiration from Rudolf Virchow's famous assertion that "medicine is a social science," and in my own research I use ethnographic methods to understand medical practice and education in its broader contexts. Since joining the faculty of the University of Washington I have developed four different research trajectories, focusing on 1) ultrasound technology, consumption, and the politics of reproduction; 2) medical decision-making at the end of life; 3) formulations of 'culture' within medical education; and 4) the newest of these directions, the role and the work of standardized patients in medical education.”
Personal Web Page: [Click Here]
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Selected Publications:
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2008
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The Public Life of the Fetal Sonogram: Technology, Consumption, and the Politics of Reproduction. Rutgers University Press.
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2008
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“Ultrasound: Diagnostic Test, Bonding Opportunity, or Consumer Entertainment?” In Our Bodies Our Selves: Pregnancy and Birth, ed. The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, pp. 118-119. New York: Simon & Schuster.
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2007
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“Surviving Surrogate Decision-Making: What Helps and Hampers the Experience of Making Medical Decisions for Others.” EK Vig, HS Starks, JS Taylor, EM Hopley, K Fryer-Edwards. Journal of General Internal Medicine 22:1275-1279.
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2006
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“Beyond Substituted Judgment: How Surrogates Navigate End-of-Life Decision-making.” EK Vig, JS Taylor, HS Starks, EM Hopley, K Fryer-Edwards. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 54(11):1688-1693
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2005
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"Surfacing the Body Interior", Annual Reviews in Anthropology 34: 741-756.
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2004
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Consuming Motherhood, co-edited with Linda Layne and Danielle Wozniak. Rutgers University Press.
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2003
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“The Story Catches You and You Fall Down: Tragedy, Ethnography, and ‘Cultural Competence',” Medical Anthropology Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 2 (June).
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2003
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“Confronting ‘Culture' in Medicine's ‘Culture of No Culture',” Academic Medicine, vol. 78 no. 3 (June).
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2000
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“Of Sonograms and Baby Prams: Prenatal Diagnosis, Pregnancy, and Consumption,” Feminist Studies 26(2):391-418.
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