Vania Smith-OkaVania Smith-Oka

Nancy O’Neill Assistant Professor of Anthropology
(PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago)
649 Flanner
574-631-7269
email: vsmithok@nd.edu
http://anthropology.nd.edu/faculty-staff/smith-oka_vania/index.shtml

Geographic focus: Mexico

Thematic interests: Globalization; reproductive health; indigenous women's knowledge; ethnobotany; formal and informal health systems.

Current research: How marginal peoples around the world respond to the impact that globalization has on their health needs and local knowledge by looking at how the least powerful members of a community, i.e. women, are responding to this globalization.

Selected publications: "Unintended Consequences: Exploring the Tensions between Development Programs and Indigenous Women in Mexico in the Context of Reproductive Health," Social Science and Medicine 68, 11( 2009); "Plants Used for Reproductive Health by Nahua Women in Northern Veracruz, Mexico" (Economic Botany 2008); The History of the Incas, editor (University of Texas Press, 2007); “The Disease Factor: The Impact of HIV/AIDS on the People of Tsavo” in Ecology, Economy, and Culture: Human Interactions in the Tsavo Region, Kenya, coauthor (Africa World Press, forthcoming).