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, Jean Hunleth, with submissions and ideas:
jean.hunleth@wustl.edu
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Duplicitous Trust: Village Health Work in the Wake of Humanitarian Protection Failings in Uganda
The story of Scovia Abraham, a young South Sudanese man currently living under refugee status in one of northern Uganda’s many refugee settlements, is an active member of the Village Health Team (VHT). Abraham’s contracted work involves surveilling sickness within a defined…
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“These people are lying to us”: Mutating Vaccine Fears and Colonial Histories in Arua, North-West Uganda
In Arua, a border city in the West Nile sub-region of North-West Uganda, many people questioned whether COVID-19 vaccines might harm them. From the outset of Uganda’s vaccine roll-out in March 2021, people articulated fears that the government and medical authorities were…
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The Entanglements of Trust and Distrust: Roma Reproduction in the COVID-19 Pandemic
“My baby is going to be born soon, and I am afraid,” Mira1 told me. This was her second pregnancy, and after a traumatic first birth, she was afraid that the medical staff would not pay attention to her concerns. Mira was…
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Meeting in the Middle? The slippage of “trust” in online public health briefings
It was a bleak winter in the UK: the dreaded second wave of COVID-19 swept in with the cold and rain, triggering a return to nation-wide lockdown. The government-led vaccine rollout seeded hope while generating new uncertainties as cases continued to rise.…
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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…
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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…