Language and Health in Action

Dr. Lynnette Arnold is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is a linguistic anthropologist with a primary area of focus in the Americas, where she has conducted research on language, care, and migration. Dr. Arnold works to create interdisciplinary conversations about the social power of language, demonstrating that attention to linguistic practices can generate consequential new understandings of pressing current issues. This approach is exemplified in her monograph, Living Together Across Borders: Communicative Care in Transnational Salvadoran Families (Oxford University Press, Studies in the Anthropology of Language, 2024).Dr. Jennifer R. Guzmán is Associate Professor of Anthropology at SUNY Geneseo, where she coordinates the Interdisciplinary Program in Sociomedical Sciences. Her research focuses on how people confront health challenges and advocate for themselves within systems that are harmful to health, including intercultural health efforts in Chile and immigrant/labor rights organizing in New York. She has studied clinical interaction in conventional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) and Integrative Medicine (IM) , and ethnomedical settings. Dr. Guzmán is co-editor of Ethnographic Insights on Latin America and the Caribbean, an edited collection designed for undergraduate teaching.Dr. Emily Avera is an assistant professor of anthropology at Colgate University. She received her PhD from Brown University and holds graduate degrees from Leiden University and University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on the sociocultural dimensions of health, race and racialization in medicine, and transplant and transfusion medicine, primarily in the South African context. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Science Foundation and Fulbright IIE. Her scholarly interests include the intersections of medical and linguistic anthropology, science and technology studies approaches (science and society), critical race studies, development studies, and global health.Dr. Anna I. Corwin is Associate Professor and Chair of the Women's Spirituality Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She received her Ph.D. from UCLA and is a recipient of fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Templeton World Charity Foundation for her research on aging, well-being, and religious expertise.

• Foreword: Beyond Linguistic and Medical Anthropology Divides: The Emergence of Critical Synthetic Perspectives Charles L. Briggs Key Concepts in Language and Health Lynnette Arnold, Jennifer R.Guzmán, Emily Avera and Anna I. Corwin Section 1. Clinical Interaction: Editors' Introduction 1: Hannah S. Noblewolf and Lisa Wolf: Everyone is "Mom": Speaking Maternalism in US Emergency Departments 2: Hyemin Lee: Talking about Pain in Traditional Korean Medicine Clinics 3: Stephanie Keeney Parks: Autism Diagnostics as White Public Space in US Clinics Section 2. Language Access: Editors' Introduction 4: Rachel Showstack, Raúl Rangel Fernández, and Margarita Francisco: Health Care Access for Mayan Communities in Kansas 5: Lissie Wahl: Of Worlds and Words: Medical Interpretation in a US Primary Care Clinic 6: Paula F. Saravia and Jorge Tibor Gutiérrez: Translating the Invisible: Intercultural Health Facilitators in Indigenous Chile Section 3. Community and Communicability: Editors' Introduction 7: Daniel W. Krugman and Mohamed Yunus Rafiq: Kansa, Saratani, and Biocommunicability in Coastal Tanzania 8: Xochitl Marsilli-Vargas: The Circulation of Psychoanalytic Discourses beyond the Clinic in Buenos Aires 9: Steven P. Black: Facing HIV Stigma with Scientific Medicine in a Bio-Speech Community in South Africa Section 4. Language and Environment: Editors' Introduction 10: Merav Shohet and Insa M. Schmidt: "I'm still here!": Listening to African American Silences and Narratives of Life on Dialysis in Boston 11: T. S. Harvey: Water Everywhere, but Is It Safe to Drink?: Risk, Perception, and Public Health in Guatemala 12: Paja Faudree: Introducing Xka Pastora, One of the World's Newest "Drugs" Section 5. Healing Practices: Editors' Introduction 13: Abby Mack: In the Spirit, in the Flesh: Performative Language, Embodiment, and Sustaining Recovery in Appalachia 14: Claudia Morales: Caught between Stories of Healing and Migration: Rehabilitation Care for Migrants with Amputations in Mexico 15: Marjorie Harness Goodwin, Federica Raia and Mario Deng: Learning to Experience Dying as a Part of Living: An Individual and Collective Journey Afterword: The Case for Narrative Competence in the Clinic and Beyond, Mara Buchbinder