Weight stigma is reportedly globalizing, but there is limited evidence of how concerns around weight change are impacting those in many places. Additionally, few studies to date have considered how weight stigma operates in the context of interventions that purposefully eschew from a focus on weight itself. We have used qualitative analysis to examine body acceptance and responses to weight stigma among urban Brazilian gorda women participating in two forms of Health at Every Size® (HAES®) interventions: an intensive HAES® program (I-HAES®, n=26), which directly addressed weight stigma and a traditional, less-intensive HAES® program (CTRL, n=13). Individual, semi-structured interviews regarding how participants felt about their bodies were conducted post-intervention. Exploratory content analysis followed an inductive approach. The I-HAES®-group was more prone to accept their bodies, to feel well-being, to do new things, and to give proactive responses to weight stigma, while the CTRL-group internalized and accepted stigma, reported a lack of body acceptance, and indicated they were less able to challenge stigma in their lives. Interdisciplinary, intensive HAES® interventions appear able to meaningfully tackle responses to weight stigma and promote body acceptance, important in contexts where stigma is a major component of how women experience their weight.

Recently developed scales aim to advance understanding of household water insecurity and inform interventions to address this critical global problem. The relative severity of items included in household water insecurity scales has been established as an inverse of the proportion of the population that reports experiencing the item. Here, we assess subjective perceptions of scale item severity among people who experience household water insecurity. In 2017, we surveyed 259 women in Amhara, Ethiopia, assessing both experiences of water insecurity and perceptions of item severity using a pictorial scale. The mean subjective severity of most items was at the high end of our pictorial scale. Subjective severity of items was not associated with whether or not a participant experienced the item in the last thirty days, with a participant’s summary household water insecurity score, or with rural versus peri-urban residence, but was consistently associated with community of residence. Item severity as defined by the proportion of the population experiencing the item aligned with average perceptions of item severity, with one exception: drinking water that might not be safe. We discuss these findings’ implications for water insecurity measurement, evaluation of interventions, and studies of the relationship between water insecurity and psychological distress.

Hurricane Florence swept up the eastern United States coast and slowly moved through North Carolina as a tropical storm in September 2018. Producing twenty to thirty inches of rain, Florence caused dangerous flooding, displacement, and widespread wind damage and power outages. While coastal areas were hard hit by the storm, many impoverished in-land areas spanning multiple river basins were also heavily flooded. Although the winds have ceased and the waters receded, the disaster continues to unfold in bureaucratic contexts with uneven effects temporally and spatially for affected locals. Local organizations and the Federal Emergency Management Agency assess damages, process funding applications, and work to rebuild. Drawing on ten months of ethnographic research in Cumberland County, NC, we illuminate the ways in which the temporality of bureaucratic processes is a form of bureaucratic violence that exacerbates suffering in the context of crisis and how local organizations attempt to recover and rebuild in the face of pervasive top-down bureaucratic obstacles.

The increasing popularity and availability of genetic testing has the potential to play into debates surrounding forms of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land ownership known as “native title.” This paper draws on research with applied anthropologists working in native title, and a review of descriptions of native title holders in existing determinations, to address three key questions: Are native title holders and claimants interested in using genetic genealogy for claiming native title or resolving membership disputes? If so, can this biotechnology offer them the kind of information they seek? And finally, does the legal framework allow or support its use for these purposes? Our findings highlight the importance of disseminating current information about genetic genealogy among Indigenous Australians and having frank conversations about the opportunities and limits of genetic technologies in this context.

The Peruvian government's Law N. 27811, an intellectual property law passed in 2002 and designed to register and protect traditional knowledge, provides productive opportunities for critical analysis. Framed within the trajectory of international intellectual property rights and discussions that complicate the integration of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) into Cartesian scientific frameworks, this paper critically examines how the Peruvian law has been implemented and its impacts in Indigenous communities, particularly in the Andean Amazon region. The analysis is based on the author's work assisting Indigenous communities in San Martin register their knowledge through this law. While the law represents an advanced legal attempt to address power inequalities, it remains problematic. It does not address the impoverishment of Indigenous Peoples and continues to subordinate Indigenous TEK to Cartesian science. Although it is a symbolic recognition of the value of Peruvian Indigenous Peoples, other mechanisms are still required to redress the long history of colonization and racism.

In practice, development too often neglects the perspective of the impoverished when attempting to ameliorate negative socioeconomic conditions that persist. Entrepreneurs, and in particular social entrepreneurs, often attempt to solve social issues through a triple-bottom line approach but in many cases focus on the problem without greater consideration to the cultural context of their intervention. We introduce a new term, transcultural development, to advocate for the inclusion and preservation of cultural norms and rights of receiving cultures in the face of globalization, particularly when conducting projects that attempt to alleviate poverty. Presented is an applied ethnographic study conducted by two faculty members and seven undergraduate students consulting for a non-governmental organization (NGO) social enterprise over a ten-day short-term study abroad trip. The NGO and student group aimed to assist impoverished Guatemalans inhabiting the southwestern coastal plain to develop a new export crop, the pigeonpea ( Cajanus cajan ). Gender norms and rights proved a focal point in demonstrating the importance of conducting social impact assessments regularly to mitigate entrenched or biased views. The transcultural development approach may optimally incorporate an applied anthropological lens to the social aspects of social entrepreneurship.

This article examines the experiences of African-American food-aid seekers as they navigate food charity programming that includes mandatory nutrition education. This model of food charity provisioning—in which receipt of aid is tied to education—is increasingly common in the United States. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted between 2015 and 2018 in a nationally replicated nutrition education program in Kansas City, this article argues that these models of food charity function as “white public spaces” (Page and Thomas 1994), with significant negative impacts on their efficacy. It argues that white public space is created in these programs through race avoidant language concerning “food deserts” and nutritional education. These programmatic foci are both ineffective at addressing urban hunger and create racially discriminatory space within food charity programming. The article offers concrete suggestions for improving food charity programming and disrupting white privilege in food charity spaces, made by African-American food-aid seekers themselves.

Anthropologists have made important contributions to the study of policy and can play a critical role as participants in policy processes, as well. This article focuses on national health reform po...

Contemporary anthropology provides practical insights about development as a social process but mainly with reference to international contexts. Anthropologists have had little involvement in domestic local and regional development work, and anthropology is practically unknown in local and regional development circles. Yet anthropology can provide practical guidance for development initiatives in local areas by helping professionals to reframe development issues with attention to different actors' knowledges and logics. This article describes how insights from anthropology informed a local and regional development program in North West Tasmania, Australia. An anthropological process of seeking out local knowledges and bringing them into dialogue reframed development problems and suggested new logics of action for change.