On the morning of March 22nd, 2023, I watched from a balcony as the United Nations held its’ first dialogue on the human right to water in over 50 years. This once in a generation conference was convened to review the world’s progress in assuring Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6), Clean Water and Sanitation for…
Author: Steven Rhue
Steven Rhue is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology and research associate of the Human Biological Anthropology Laboratory (HBAL) at The Ohio State University. As a medical anthropologist and public health professional, his work acknowledges that contemporary challenges to human health and wellbeing are rarely those of biomedical ability, but often an intricate combination of socio-cultural issues and institutional barriers driven by systematic inequality and discrimination that permeate all levels of, and access to, care. Steven’s research emphasizes these lived experiences through ethnographic inquiry, and actively translates them into meaningful action and policy across academic, professional, and public spheres. His current research concerns the realities of household water (in)security, and has active projects in both Brazil and Ecuador.
The Ethnographer’s Dilemma [Part 2]: “the field”
“Our medium, our canvas, is “the field,” a place both proximate and intimate (because we have lived some part of our lives there) as well as forever distant and unknowably “other” (because our own destinies lie elsewhere).” (Scheper-Hughes xii) For ethnographers, “the field” is an environment where we spend countless hours participating in and observing…
What does it mean to be a triplet anyway?
Steven Rhue // What is a triplet anyway? Well . . . me. I am one of three. A sibling to a brother and a sister. We were born in the same year, on the same day, at approximately the same time, and as it would imply, we are the same age. A more…
Book Review: Narrative Art and the Politics of Health
Steven Rhue // Narrative Art and the Politics of Health stands out as wonderful collection of essays that unites disparate stories of health and wellbeing entangled with in the politics of medicine and healing. Brooks and Blanchette have carefully organized this assortment of writings in three thematic divisions. Part 1 of the volume concerns institutional narratives that confront…
Acknowledged but Unheard: The Absence of Children’s Voices in Water Insecurity
Steven Rhue // Children’s voices are all but absent from research on water insecurity or the condition where access to and benefit from affordable adequate, reliable, and safe water for health and well-being is unobtainable or precarious (Jepson et al.). This body of work has been dominated by the underlying assumption that a child’s experience…
The Ethnographer’s Dilemma: A New World Shaped by COVID-19
Steven Rhue // We are all adjusting to the realities of the pandemic. Undoubtedly, it has become the topic of numerous personal and professional discussions, as we navigate newfound challenges in uncertain times. As a student of anthropology and an ethnographer, I find myself in a world where the very foundations of generating rich qualitative…