Rachel R. Chapman (PhD 1998, UC Los Angeles)

Research Interests: Political economy of prenatal care and reproductive health management; birth in the other America; racial/ethnic disparities in health; domestic violence and social cohesion; women and AIDS treatment in the African Diaspora; the intersection of race, class and gender in ethnic identity; urban US, Mozambique and South East Africa "My commitment is to researching, publishing and applying to real world problems an understanding of the meaning and politics of race, class and gender identities as they intersect in culture with power to inform the life chances and life quality of people on the margins of society. Unifying my research and writing to date is concern with exposing the intricate ways that race, class and gender shape social hierarchies in the U.S. and global order, and with grounding questions of race, class, and gender inequalities within nonessentialist understandings of identity. The theme that runs through my work is my attention to continuity and survival strategies in poor communities. That commitment has crystallized in the study of the reproductive health of women in difficult circumstances, from the structural violence affecting impoverished women in a gentrifying neighborhood in Los Angeles, to women in war torn and AIDS ravished Mozambique and back to women who lack prenatal health care in an economically depressed and racially segregated American city." Read about Dr. Chapmans life and work in this UWTV interview: "A Quest to Protect the Most Vulnerable" Class Web Pages Africa Living with HIV/AIDS: Focusing Out on the Issues (Anth 469C)

Selected Publications:
2010	Pfeiffer, James and Rachel Chapman. Structural Adjustment and Public Health. Annual Review of Anthropology.
2010	Chapman, Rachel. Family Secrets: Risking Reproduction in Central Mozambique. Vanderbilt University Press.
2008	Davis-Floyd, Robbie, and Rachel Chapman. “Ritual.” In Encyclopedia of Women's Folklore and Folklife. Liz Locke, Theresa A. Vaughan, and Pauline Greenhill, eds.Westport, CT: Greenwood Press: 603-611.
2006	Chapman, Rachel. Chikotsa: Managing the Social Risks of Reproduction in Central Mozambique. Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 20(4): 487-515.
2005	Chapman, Rachel and Jean Berggren. "Radical Contextualization: Contributions to an Anthropology of Racial/Ethnic Health Disparities." Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine 9(2):145-167.
2004	Chapman RR. "A Nova Vida: The Commoditization of Reproductive Health in Central Mozambique." Medical Anthropology 23(3):229-61.
2003	Chapman, RR. "Endangering safe motherhood in Mozambique: prenatal care as pregnancy risk." Social Science and Medicine. 57(2):355-374.
2001	Chapman RR. "Prenatal Care as Reproductive Threat: When Medical Norms Exclude Screening for Social Risks." Discovering Normalcy in the Reproductive Body. Working Paper, African Studies Program. Northwestern University.