Critical Care is the online publication of Medical Anthropology Quarterly. Critical Care provides anthropological insights about current events; creating space for public-facing writing, worldly and speculative interpretations of research, and dissemination of work to broader audiences. Critical Care combines the theoretical legacy of medical anthropology with applied, real-world engagements, providing careful responses to urgent matters demanding our attention.
Our editorial team is always looking for innovative and accessible contributions from medical anthropology and neighboring disciplines. Submissions will be reviewed by the MAQ Digital Editor and Editor, and we will work closely with authors on revisions. Multimedia or text submissions can take the form of:
- reflections on fieldwork in progress
- introduction of emergent methodologies or concepts
- medical anthropological perspectives on current events
- amplifying underrepresented voices in medical anthropology and in biomedicine/tech at large
- reports from events, workshops, conference sessions
We also welcome online series ideas, which can resemble a journal special issue or be a collected group of submissions focused around a common theme or topic. A series can be curated by a contributor or by the digital editor.
Please contact the MAQ Digital Editor, Jessica Robbins-Panko, with submissions and ideas: jessica.robbins@wayne.edu.
-
Vaccine Anxieties and the Dynamics of Trust: reflecting on pandemic landscapes in Uganda and Sierra Leone
The COVID-19 pandemic moved into a new phase in 2022 with intensifying focus on technological responses. An increasing reference to “trust” in global-level policy discourse has been noticeable as we have engaged as social scientists and invited participants in global health agency…
-
Confianza: COVID care at the intersection of kinship, community, and biomedicine
When Yesenia Mendoza and her family contracted COVID-19 in November 2020, they quickly relocated to the county-provided isolation housing available to farmworker families in the Salinas Valley of California. Few were availing themselves of this service, and it was rumored to be…
-
An Elusive Animal: Trust in an Uncertain Present
Series Introduction: “Theorizing Trust from Anthropological Perspectives“ This piece introduces an eight-part series, “Theorizing Trust from Anthropological Perspectives.” Nikita Simpson and Elizabeth Storer reflect on theorizations of trust that they encountered while conducting empirical and policy-focused research during the COVID-19 pandemic. They…
-
Staying Put: Principled Immobility
For a brief moment in 2020, the global pandemic shutdowns provided a natural experiment: What happens when people stop moving around the globe? Quickly, skies over polluted cities cleared. We could hear the birds even in the most dense urban settings. Pumas…
-
“Masks Are Like a Patch”: On the limits and possibilities of solidarity with farmworkers in a pandemic
When immigrant farmworker communities are not accounted for in the official records, like the Census, they will, once again, be denied significant resources and support for at least another ten years. The cumulative effects of this are devastating and harder to ignore…
-
The Trans Body Is A Valuable Resource
Early Notes on a New Research Project Most tissues removed in the course of a surgical operation are considered abandoned by the operated patient. I abandoned my tonsils when I was 5 years old and my appendix when I was 38. Although…