M6 Discussion - Pandemic Lessons & Future of Health

For a final discussion you are invited to address one of the following topics with one original post. Option 1: Drawing upon one or two articles from the Sapiens Coronavirus Coverage Collection ... Consider how health, illness, and care-giving are being shaped by the interplay of local and global forces, focusing on a particular setting by analyzing a specific cultural example, such as a particular community, at a particular location and/or at a particular point in time. Some questions you may consider: How are people in the Sapiens article(s) that you selected above (as insiders or outsiders to social structures of power and privilege) adapting to changes, negotiating daily hardships, and navigating the unequal impacts of the pandemic with their bodies, minds, and voices? What role does gender play, directly or indirectly? While the article may not explicitly address this, you can make observations about people featured in images and text: how do they meet or challenge expectations/norms or how they express/perform gender. How do people exert agency, find support, or wield power amidst chaotic, harsh, or unprecedented circumstances that are (for the most part) outside their control? Do you see any common threads between your ethnography and the Sapiens article(s)? OR Option 2: Reflecting upon one or two United Nations Sustainable Development Goals ... If you are focusing on one or more of the UN development goals, try to evaluate the local impacts of large-scale and long-term trends (such as colonialism, imperialism, globalization, modernization, as well as access to western aid, mass media, internet) by focusing on a particular aspect of individual or population health. These impacts can include health behaviors and beliefs, practices or products, therapies or traumas, socioeconomic changes, etc. For example, an increase in trans-national surrogacy has significant consequences for women's reproductive health and children's health, whereas restrictions (such as the ones created by the pandemic) can similarly create negative consequences and additional risks for surrogate mothers and their babies. Reflect critically on changes and challenges occurring in a specific cultural context. As you know, definitions, priorities, and approaches to problems depend on whose agenda, whose funding, whose point of view, whose voices are being most prominently and publicly represented. You can use readings or resources from throughout in the course if they are properly referenced in APA style. What new risks or possible solutions are introduced by new technologies? How are health and illness transformed by increased global and regional migrations of microbes, animals, plants, and humans, within countries and across borders? Is the issue under consideration influenced by global warming? If so, how? Which interventions or remedies can mitigate harms and improve outcomes? Remember: Refer specifically to the assigned readings and video in your posts. Your initial post should be minimum 300 (max 500) words in length.