Anthropology Department Talks 2024-2025: Dr. Rachel Hall-Clifford, A Method in Three Stories: Ethical Reckonings with the Lives of Data and the Case for Co-Design
Rachel Hall-Clifford, PhD, MPH, MSc, is Associate Professor in the Center for the Study of Human Health and the Departments of Sociology and Global Health at Emory University. She is a medical anthropologist who applies social science approaches to global health research and implementation.
Talk Abstract:
A method in three stories: Ethical reckonings with the lives of data and the case for co-design Doing ‘good’ in the world is dynamically imagined, shaped by person, place, and power. Within applied anthropology, participatory methods are often viewed as empowering local communities and building equitable research relationships. This presentation explores the pitfalls of traditional participatory methods and considers co-design as an ethical evolution of such approaches through three ethnographic stories—a comedy, a tragedy, and a new reality. Based on nearly 20 years of medical anthropology research and practice in global health, I confront the methodologic tension between an ethical imperative to support the human rights of local communities and the obligation to protect research collaborators, particularly in contexts of violence and marginalization. Co-design approaches can help us move beyond procedural ethics to position applied anthropology within local moral worlds. However, important challenges remain for positioning co-design as a transformative methodological shift toward equity for applied anthropology and global health implementation science. The lecture builds from the newly published monograph, Underbelly: Childhood Diarrhea and the Hidden Local Realities of Global Health (MIT Press).