SPA Biennial Meeting 2015

Omni Parker House in Boston, MA
April 9-12, 2015

Plenary Sessions

The Biennial Meeting will include a Saturday plenary session on “Controversies in Global Mental Health” organized by Janis Jenkins (UCSD) and Byron Good (Harvard). Talks include:

• “We Don’t Know Enough”: The Challenge of Understanding Extraordinary Conditions – Janis Jenkins (UCSD)
• Dueling Nosologies: DSM and RDoC (Another Type of Culture War?) – Roberto Lewis-Fernandez (Columbia)
• Issues in the Global Study of Autism: Singularity, Fetishism, and Money – Roy Richard Grinker (George Washington University)
• Trauma, PTSD and Trauma Treatment: An Engaged Anthropologist’s Perspective on Debates in Global Mental Health – Byron Good (Harvard)
• Making Treatment Culturally Appropriate: Assessing for Cultural Syndromes and Related Catastrophic Cognitions – Devon Hinton (Harvard)
• What are Eating Disorders? Reconciling Diagnostic Fluidity, Social Invisibility, and Clinical Salience – Anne Becker (Harvard)
• Making Psychological Anthropology Relevant to Global Mental Health – Tanya Luhrmann (Stanford)
• The Struggle between Keeping the Society Safe and Keeping the Patients Well – Xin Yu (Peking University)
• Perspectives on Innovative Mental Health Governance in China and Indonesia: “Unlocking the Mentally Ill” – Mary-Jo Delvecchio Good (Harvard)
• Becoming Recovered and Moral Agency: Local and Global – Neely Myers (Southern Methodist University)

We will also have a Friday afternoon plenary entitled “Postcolonial Theory and Psychological Anthropology: A Conversation with Homi Bhabha” organized by Angela Garcia (Stanford) and Byron Good (Harvard). This panel brings Homi Bhabha, a seminal figure in postcolonial theory, into conversation with anthropologists studying different trajectories of postcolonial psychology. Drawing together a variety of ethnographic and critical perspectives, our focus is to address the social, political and historical issues affecting the postcolonial condition, to represent the impact of postcolonial criticism on psychological anthropology, and to explore the potential of postcolonial critique for politically engaged psychological anthropology. This panel asks: How is the postcolonial folded into subjectivity? What kinds of experience is addiction, madness, suicide or violence in relation to postcolonial history? How might postcolonial theory animate psychological anthropology, not only in terms of understanding the discursive and embodied elements of consciousness or suffering, but also in attending to the relationship between theory, method and knowledge? And is a focus on the postcolonial relevant for all societies and aspects of psychological anthropology, or of more limited relevance?

 In addition to a keynote talk by Homi Bhabha (Harvard), commentaries will be offered by Vincent Crapanzano (Columbia), Angela Garcia (Stanford), Stefania Pandolfo (University of California at Berkeley), Lisa Stevenson (McGill), and Joao Biehl (Princeton).

Special Events

We will be hosting a breakfast event entitled “Methods that Matter”: Breakfast and Lectures from Robert LeVine and Tom Weisner. This breakfast event is an invitation to explore the benefits of mixed methods research with two leaders in the field. To launch our conversation, Robert LeVine (Harvard) will speak on “Repairing the Fractured Social Sciences: A Historical Perspective on Mixed Methods and their Rediscovery.” Tom Weisner (UCLA) will follow with a discussion of how combining methodologies leads to, as the title of his talk states, “Findings that matter.” These talks will illustrate the advantages of a restored social science, one that has come of age by doing the kind of integrative, holistic and often collaborative research our social science ancestors originally envisioned.

The “Methods that Matter” event will be held on Friday, April 10th from 8 – 9:45 AM. The lectures and discussion will be accompanied by a breakfast buffet, including:

• Cinnamon French Toast with Grand Marnier, Strawberry Butter and Maple Syrup
• Assorted Breakfast Pastries and Bagels with Cream Cheeses and Fruit Preserves
• Cut Fresh Fruit with Seasonal Berries
• Assorted Juices, Coffee and Teas

Tickets for the event are $20 per person. The event is subsidized in part by the Lemelson / SPA Conference Fund, made possible by a generous donation from the Robert Lemelson Foundation.

Our Saturday Night Banquet will include presentation of the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award to Vincent Crapanzano, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), and a talk by Paul Farmer, Kolokotrones University Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard University. The banquet will be held on Saturday, April 11th beginning at 7 PM and will include a buffet dinner and cash bar.

On Thursday, April 9th at 2:15 p.m., we will host a workshop with Eli Lieber (Dedoose) and Tom Weisner (UCLA) entitled Qualitative Data Analysis Software: Dedoose as Exemplar.

For decades, qualitative data analysis software has been used in research and educational settings to improve efficiencies in the management and analysis of research data. Findings can be enhanced when these tools are understood, mastered, and their features are used effectively. At the same time, there are concerns about how these tools may impact how researchers produce data, analyze and interact with their data, and present evidence in publications and presentations. In this workshop, the Dedoose application will be introduced and used to illustrate how the typical tasks of qualitative researchers can be carried out in a relatively transparent and collaborative environment. For many years, traditional software packages with many overlapping features (Atlas.ti, NVivo, and MAXQDA) have been available. However, Dedoose was designed and developed to address unique challenges that could not be served by these other tools. Dedoose supports analyses of narratives, embedded i