University of Alabama Repository :: Browsing by Author "Lynn, Christopher D."

Browsing by Author "Lynn, Christopher D."

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The agency of ibogaine: emic understandings of a grassroots psychiatry in Mexico
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2020) Patterson, Dillon Robert; Lynn, Christopher D.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
As opiate addiction rates rise, many individuals find conventional biomedical and 12-step-based treatment programs insufficient in their attempts to overcome addiction. In response to this unmet need, a grassroots community has developed a novel approach to treatment based on a unique cultural model of addiction. Operating with the belief that conventional treatment models are intentionally designed to not to work, this community aims for the mitigation of problematic drug use, rather than complete sobriety. Its mode of treatment is a psychedelic-like plant alkaloid, ibogaine. Perhaps in part due to the recent scientific attention classic psychedelics have received and in part due to the rise of opiate addiction rates, ibogaine therapy has become the subject of an increasing body of scientific literature. But, small clinics around the world have practiced ibogaine therapy for opiate addiction consistently since the mid 20th century. This paper: (1) contextualizes the scientific work that has been done in these clinics by providing an ethnographic account of the ibogaine therapy community and its understanding of addiction, (2) situates ibogaine therapy within the larger scope of psychedelic-assisted treatments for addiction, and (3) explores the emic understanding of how ibogaine therapy works. Drawing on Eduardo Kohn’s framework for an “anthropology beyond the human” and theoretical concepts from cognitive anthropology, I put forth the argument that ibogaine therapy is grassroots psychiatry, centered on the healing power of ibogaine, which is itself a social agent capable of healing through conversational interaction with patients.
Book Review: Why it's Interesting Why Women Have Sex
Smith, J. Brett; Lynn, Christopher D.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Connections between the folk psychiatry of addiction and levels of attributed stigma
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2016) Henderson, Nicole Lynn; Dressler, William W.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Some serious health problems, such as addiction, can be highly stigmatized by others. Through different learning experiences and life events, people develop varying conceptions of the etiology of addiction. These sets of beliefs are referred to as “folk psychiatry” and can be understood as a guiding force behind public opinion. This study examines the knowledge individuals use to make judgments about individuals with substance-use disorder by positing a shared cultural model of addiction causality. This research was conducted among undergraduate students at the University of Alabama, as college students in the 18-25 age range are especially at risk for developing substance-use disorder due to binge drinking on college campus and other factors. As causes of addiction are heavily intertwined with biological, social, and political issues, this model aids in recognizing which realm of understanding maintains the highest saliency in laypeople’s conceptions of the development of substance use-disorder. The model consists of 28 causes distributed throughout five themes: Biomedical, Self-Medication, Familial, Social, and Hedonistic. Cultural consensus was found along three dimensions of the model: overall influence of causes, level of personal control over causes, and level of outsider influence on causes. Differing knowledge and understandings of the model of addiction causality and measures of political progressivism were shown to have significant effects on the level of attributed stigma towards individuals with substance use disorder.
Eating the Valley: a Paleoethnobotanical Investigation of Local Food Use and Identity in the Cinti Valley, Bolivia in the Late Intermediate Period
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2022) Sponholtz, Julia Grace; Chiou, Katherine L.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
The Cinti Valley is located in southern Bolivia and has been occupied for at least 9,000 years, with an intensification in settlement starting around 800 years ago. The region was first surveyed in the 1990s, and in 1994, two sites, Palca Chica and El Porvenir, were excavated to investigate the chronology of the Cinti Valley. Rivera Casanovas (2004) proposed that the sites in the Cinti valley formed a three-tier site hierarchy, with a capital, local centers like El Porvenir, and small villages like Palca Chica. To study how these processes impacted food and plant use in the Cinti Valley, I sorted 17 flotation samples collected from Palca Chica and 21 from El Porvenir by Rivera Casanovas and Michel (1995). To analyze these samples, I compared the assemblages of Palca Chica and El Porvenir to study the difference between a small village and a local center, finding more local foods such as Trichocereeae (cacti), Portulaca spp., and Amaranthus spp. at El Porvenir and more Andean staple foods like corn and quinoa at Palca Chica. Additionally, to understand how plant use in the Cinti Valley compares to the rest of the Andes, in the highlands and lowlands, I compared the results to those of other Andean paleoethnobotanical studies. I found that the Cinti Valley sites had a much greater focus on local foods than traditional Andean staples compared to the other sites, suggesting that the residents of Palca Chica and El Porvenir developed their own local diets and identities.
The Effects of Performance-Based Education on Evolutionary Attitudes and Literacy
James, Hillarie R.; Manresa, Yanet; Metts, Robert L.; Lynn, Christopher D.; Brinkman, Baba; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Embeddedness, cultural consonance, and health in a dynamic migration network in Northern Peru
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2018) Stein, Max Jacob; Oths, Kathryn S.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
This dissertation investigates the effect of migrant embeddedness on cultural consonance and psychological health outcomes. Specifically, this project evaluates the extent that migrants’ relative attainment of shared migration goals and lifestyle aspirations is a consequence of their position in a translocal network of fellow migrants with whom they share longstanding social relations. The research question is posed with respect to a diaspora community originating from the Andean village of Chugurpampa in La Libertad, Peru. In the late 1980s, Chugurpampa was a vibrant farming community, but 30 years of rising economic stagnation and climatic instability have driven hundreds to out-migrate to the nearby city of Trujillo to overcome poverty. This mixed-methods project was conducted across the pueblos jovenes (shantytowns) and urbanizaciones (neighborhoods) of Trujillo Province in La Libertad, Peru, where thousands of Liberteñan migrants have found success as shoemakers, merchants, business persons, drivers, and brick masons. Some youths pursue advanced studies in technical schools and universities with hopes of becoming professionals, which most regard the only reliable way to get oneself ahead in life. Research therefore focuses on: (1) the construction and distribution of cultural models of “Chugurpampan migration success” (CMS), including shared migration goals and lifestyle aspirations; (2) modeling the boundaries and structure of Chugurpampa’s diaspora in Trujillo; (3) evaluating individual levels of mental distress using two correlated psychological instruments as outcome variables in empirical testing. This project offers an understanding of how social structure influences cultural success and mental well-being. Specifically, research integrates concepts from social network theory and cognitive anthropology to empirically test whether migrants’ embeddedness in the Trujillo-based diaspora community shapes their cultural consonance in CMS and psychological health. Results suggest embeddedness and cultural consonance have an interactive effect against psychological stressors associated with rapid culture change. Strong ties such as close family and friends are costly to people who are more embedded and consonant overall, while less strong community ties such as neighbors, schoolmates, or acquaintances are economical because they require a fraction of the maintenance and broaden access to new resources via weak ties. Conclusions aim to explain how patterns of human mobility are embedded in hierarchical relational structures and cultural institutions that influence the knowledge, behavior, and mental wellness of immigrants.
Examining rural and urban cultural models of nervios in Honduras through a biocultural lens
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2012) Stein, Max Jacob; Oths, Kathryn S.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Biocultural medical anthropology connects health outcomes to the local ecology. Much research has examined how culture influences illness beliefs, cognitively held in cultural models which are schematic representations that are widely shared and employed in social life. Consequently, rural/urban differences in the Honduran population may produce distinct cultural models of the illness nervios, a syndrome which shares several similarities with generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder but is not formally recognized in biomedicine. Cultural domain analysis was carried out on a total of n=50 participants in San Pedro Sula and Copán Ruinas to test the hypothesis that Honduran urban participants' cultural model of nervios corresponds more closely to biomedical diagnostic criteria for generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder than that of rural ones. Urban participants were found to name fewer symptoms of nervios overall, but those they did name were more likely to match DSM-IV criteria. Conclusions extend the investigation of cultural syndromes to a previously unstudied region, contribute relevant scholarship regarding the cultural syndrome nervios, expand the investigation of the relationship between illness and culture, and add to relevant discussion in cognitive anthropology concerning how cultural models emerge.
Family and the field: Expectations of a field based research career affect researcher's family planning decisions
Lynn, Christopher D.; Howells, Michaela E.; Stein, Max J.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Family and the field: Expectations of a field-based research career affect researcher family planning decisions
(PLOS, 2018) Lynn, Christopher D.; Howells, Michaela E.; Stein, Max J.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Wilmington
Field-based data collection provides an extraordinary opportunity for comparative research. However, the demands of pursuing research away from home creates an expectation of unburdened individuals who have the temporal, financial, and social resources to conduct this work. Here we examine whether this myth of the socially unencumbered scholar contributes to the loss of professionals and trainees. To investigate this, we conducted an internet-based survey of professional and graduate student anthropologists (n = 1025) focused on the challenges and barriers associated with developing and maintaining a fieldwork-oriented career path and an active family life. This study sought to determine how (1) family socioeconomic status impacts becoming an anthropologist, (2) expectations of field-based research influence family planning, and (3) fieldwork experiences influence perceptions of family-career balance and stress. We found that most anthropologists and anthropology students come from educated households and that white men were significantly more likely to become tenured professionals than other demographic groups. The gender disparity is striking because a larger number of women are trained in anthropology and were more likely than men to report delaying parenthood to pursue their career. Furthermore, regardless of socioeconomic background, anthropologists reported significant lack of family-career balance and high stress associated with the profession. For professionals, lack of balance was most associated with gender, age, SES, tenure, and impacts of parenting on their career, while for students it was ethnicity, relative degree speed, graduate funding, employment status, total research conducted, career impact on family planning, and concern with tenure (p < .05). Anthropology bridges the sciences and humanities, making it the ideal discipline to initiate discussions on the embedded structural components of field-based careers generalizable across specialties.
Finding success and health through God: a study of cultural models and health among Brazilian Pentecostals
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2013) Dengah, Henri Jean Francois; Dressler, William W.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
This dissertation investigates the influence of religious cultural consonance on well-being. In particular, I ask if religious conceptions of ideal acolyte identity and behavior buffer daily stressors experienced by socially and economically marginalized Brazilian Pentecostals. Between 1960 and 1985, the Protestant population of Brazil quadrupled. This expansion however, is disproportionately among Brazil's poor, disenfranchised, and minority populations. This research posits that Pentecostal communities offer an alternative cultural-landscape to create identity, power, and status--which may contradict, compensate, and even challenge the dominant norms. Thus, religious cultural consonance may be a specific mechanism that marginalized Brazilian Pentecostals utilize to mitigate the physiological and psychological stress of their daily lives. This mixed-methods research is conducted in Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil. The project utilizes two specific communities: The Assembléia de Deus (AD) and Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD). The AD is theologically more sectarian than the IURD, advocating a greater separation between their faith and the secular world. This cross-cultural comparison is valuable for examining potential differences in the interaction of religiosity and sectarianism in the appraisal and embodiment of psychosocial stress. Research therefore focuses on: (1) the construction and distribution of religious cultural models of ideal personhood and lifestyle; and (2) evaluating well-being through psychological health measures in relation to religious models. This research offers an understanding of how religion influences psychological well-being. More specifically, this research empirically shows how religion is a cultural institution that can offer an alternative and attainable set of life goals and identities. By conceiving religion as composed of a series of cultural models, differential adherence or cultural consonance with religious and secular ideals can be evaluated by their influence on mental well-being. Ultimately, this research will contribute to understanding the ways culture and religion shape psychological health.
From the accused to the empowered: a cultural model of identity and witchcraft in New Orleans
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2021) Smith, Sarah Emily; Lynn, Christopher D.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Historically, being accused of witchcraft meant death (Baker, 2015; Demos, 2008; Ehrenreich & English, 2010). More recently, identifying as a witch means living with a stigmatized and often concealed identity (Reece, 2016; Tejeda, 2015). Despite the injurious effects of stigmatization, such as discrimination in the workplace, isolation from one’s family, and increased subjective anxiety (Reece, 2016; Tejeda, 2015), individuals are increasingly identifying as witches in the United States. The most current estimate is that upwards of 1.5 million North Americans identify as such— though there is no official census to know for sure (Bosker, 2020; Fearnow, 2018). The motivations driving the increase remain unclear due to the narrower inquiry of extant research in which witches are often styled as white, suburbanite, middle-class, college-educated, “nature-worshipping” individuals who are predominately female. This description stems from feminist and religious studies which explore the sociopolitical underpinnings of “witch” as a politically oriented identity, the psychosocial benefits of witchcraft as a “feminist spirituality,” and on more bounded, ethnographic accounts of European-rooted “Neopagan” sects, such as Gardnerian Wicca. However, while partly true, this portrait of identity, beliefs, and practices does not accurately represent the majority, nor the diversity, of currently practicing witches as it largely excludes the specific perspectives of witches of color, male, and gender-fluid witches. In the summer of 2020, I interviewed a diverse group of witches in New Orleans, Louisiana to explore what motivates individuals to adopt the identifier “witch” as part of their identity. In this thesis, I apply a cultural model approach to both explore the question of motivation and provide a more temporally appropriate, finer-grained understanding of witches as a diverse group.
Glossolalia Influences on Stress Response Among Apostolic Pentecostals
Lynn, Christopher D.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
This study tests the hypothesis that long-term experience of Apostolic Pentecostal glossolalia or “speaking in tongues” reduces the reactivity of biological stress response to normal or “daily” stressors. Glossolalia is a form of religious dissociation. Dissociation is a universal capacity often conflated with “trance.” It refers to the partitioning of awareness associated with a variety of cross-cultural forms, from daydreaming and denial to possession trance, shamanic spirit journeys, and dissociative identity disorder. Dissociation is believed to reduce or filter stress by mediating evaluation of potential stressors and reactivity of the mechanisms of biological stress response. Previous studies have examined these mechanisms in clinical settings and in relation to secularized dissociative phenomena, but few have attempted to evaluate the stress reducing and filtering capacities of culturally relative dissociation in situ. This is important, as forms of dissociation, such as meditation and hypnosis, are used in medical application for improving health by reducing stress. The current study sought to isolate a form of culturally relative dissociation in assessing its influence on biological stress response. This was accomplished through a two year investigation among Apostolics in New York’s mid-Hudson Valley.
Health & salvation: the social construction of illness and healing in the charismatic christian church
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2012) Andrews, Courtney Jones; Cormier, Loretta A.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Health serves as a metaphor for salvation in the Charismatic Christian community at Tuscaloosa Life Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. This ethnomedical account of the church looks at how church members conceptualize the causes of illness and approach the treatment of suffering in the context of their everyday lives. Suffering is a social experience, and while biomedical health care is an available and socially acceptable form of treatment among church congregants, many people look outside the confines of biomedical treatment to substantiate and validate their illness experiences. The shared cognitive models of the divine healing system in this population inform the ways that church members think about the causes of illness and the requirements or pathways for healing. My research seeks to elucidate these models or modes of thinking in an effort to understand the attraction to this particular healing system. My methods include participant observation at Tuscaloosa Life Church over a 6-month period, semi-structured interviews with core members of the church, and cultural consensus analysis among the larger church body using free-listing and pile-sorting techniques. My research shows that the church community at TLC does ascribe to shared models of health and illness - both in the way they think about the etiology of illness and in the ways that they conceptualize the requirements or pathways to divine healing - and these models allow church members to articulate their suffering experiences in more spiritual terms and to use these experiences to reenact the salvation story.
How smart phones affect skin conductance and social support networks among students at The University of Alabama
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2014) Owens, Charles Ross; DeCaro, Jason A.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Although smart phone technology has been around several years, researchers are just now beginning to understand the impact of constantly being linked in to a network of information exchanges between and among users. Because smart phone technology has become commonplace in many developed nations such as the United States, the need to identify and observe its biological, social, and cultural impact is crucial. This investigation offers a benchmark analysis of users' perceptions of their own attachment to their smart phone devices, as well as to what extent this attachment can be measured through sympathetic nervous system response. Using skin conductance as a biomarker and a series of interviews including Cohen's Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (ISEL), it was determined that users do self-report a strong attachment to their devices. However, this attachment was not able to be captured through strict observation of skin conductance response alone during an experimental challenge when a text message was received. Rather, skin conductance level coupled with informants' interview responses yielded positive correlations between feeling anxious when the device is not nearby and with a perception that having a smart phone has dramatically changed the users' lives. Using the Kruskal-Wallis test as a non-parametric proxy for an Analysis of Variance, a significant association between the "anxious" statement and a high appraisal score on Cohen's ISEL was also determined. Lastly, a smaller group of informants underwent experience sampling interviews three times a week for seven days. Five categories of smart phone use were determined: Social Media and Photo Sharing, News and Information, Organization, Entertainment, and Communication. Smart phone use throughout the week varied among the sample. This study is a contribution to a small but growing body of literature on the biological, social, and cultural impacts of habitual smart phone use. It is hoped that researchers will benefit from this research by expanding on the observations made in this investigation in order to better understand the aggregate impact of technology on daily life.
Lost lightnin’: moonshine in Alabama as represented in the archaeological record
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2016) Medeiros, Cassandra Ann; Brown, Ian W.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Moonshine stills are commonly discovered during archaeological surveys and excavations across the southeastern United States, where moonshine production holds historical economic importance. These sites are recorded occasionally, but little investigative research is done because of a prevailing assumption that stills can offer nothing of historical significance. The present thesis, however, seeks to demonstrate that this assumption is not correct. Alabama is an ideal state for the archaeological study of moonshine still sites. Stills are recorded in the Alabama State Site File and some preliminary investigations of moonshine were completed in the late 1970’s, thus providing a base of information to facilitate further investigation toward the goals of this these. The major objectives of this thesis include establishing a chronology and typology of stills, identifying settlement patterns, and determining land use patterns associated with still locations across Alabama. The results of this thesis reveal that moonshine stills can be sorted into types and dated, and that settlement and land use patterns are identifiable in the archaeological record. I conclude that transitions in the legal status and socioeconomic importance of moonshine production in Alabama are clearly demonstrated and can be identified in the archaeological record. This research contributes to the study of historic archaeology in Alabama, as well as the anthropological investigation of alcohol and its production and distribution.
Medicines At Moundville: an Intrasite Assessment of the Moundville Cemeteries
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2022) Funkhouser, Jennifer Lynn; Brown, Ian W.; Knight, Vernon J.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
This research investigates expressions of group identity and social cohesion at the Moundville Archaeological site, a large Mississippian mound center in the Black Warrior River Valley (BWRV) of west-central Alabama. The mortuary program at Moundville has been extensively examined for evidence of status-based social differentiation, viewed from a perspective of hierarchical political organization. My analysis, a biocultural intrasite assessment of mortuary ritual at the center, investigated the construction and use of interment areas at Moundville from representative, spatial, and ontological perspectives. Data on interment location, composition, and associated accoutrements were examined from applied categories of medicine making including curing, hunting, renewal, and war. I argue that the ceremonial landscape was one deliberately crafted for community-centric renewal ritual, and later inundated with war medicine that necessitated a balance of esoteric and community ritual engagement including, but not limited to, the enactment of the mortuary program.
"Nice ink, man": a biocultural, mixed methods approach to tattooing as costly honest signaling among southern women
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2015) Dominguez, Johnna Teresa; Lynn, Christopher D.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
In this thesis I examine the influence of a cultural model of tattooing on psychological and biological stress in a sample of Southern tattooed women. The handicap principle of sexual selection states that a high risk ornament is utilized by a mate to show high-quality health. The handicap principle in regard to tattooing would mean that tattooed people would be consistently rated as more physically attractive and healthier. This was not the case in previous studies because cultural factors also influence the opinions of tattooing. Women internalize different cultural models from their friends and family well before they make the decision to get tattooed. I sought to determine if these opinions of tattooing are associated with perceived stress among 50 participants, and if tattoo experience is associated with biomarkers of stress (salivary immunoglobulin A) among 25 of the same participants receiving a tattoo. I used mixed qualitative and quantitative methods to group participants by positive and negative opinion for comparison of perceived stress and by high and low tattoo experience for comparison of S-IgA change. Results indicate that the tattoo opinion models I constructed for this study were not the most important variables when predicting perceived stress, but that individuals with more tattoo experience have adapted to the biological stress of tattooing. These data suggest that the immune response is enhanced by tattooing, but that an evolutionary signaling theory of tattooing requires incorporation of cultural models. Tattoos may not indicate better health in an environment where tattoos come with numerous preconceptions.
Pubertal plasticity: biological, social, and cultural factors driving timing of female reproductive maturation
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2011) Buzney, Catherine D.; DeCaro, Jason A.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Humans possess tremendous plasticity in pubertal timing, adjusting to variation in environmental quality including availability and reliability of material and social resources. Yet, it is not well understood how accumulated childhood experiences involving an aggregate of both short-term and prolonged nutritional, familial, and social stress influence pubertal timing in the developed world. Furthermore, the literature fails to account for the role of culture: How do public perceptions shape the interpretation and recollection of events surrounding female sexual development? Given the dramatic somatic as well as behavioral consequences of advanced development, decreasing age of menarche currently observed in industrialized, Westernized nations is a significant topic within biological and anthropological research. Understanding this trend requires empirical as well as ethnographic insight regarding the relationship between developmental biology and social, cultural, nutritional, biological, and psychological variables. I applied a mixed-methods approach in order to investigate whether an aggregate of childhood experiences and circumstances predicts timing of pubertal development in female students at the University of Alabama and Shelton State Community College. Because memories are often recalled schematically rather than according to objectively accurate events, cultural consensus analysis was also performed to explore whether a widespread model causally linking high stress and advanced puberty may shape developmental narratives. Results suggested a significant and substantial association between greater childhood stress and earlier ages at menarche and first sexual intercourse. Results also indicated a salient model in which biological factors, rather than environmental conditions, are considered predominant causes of maturation. These findings represent the first valid approach to formulating an aggregate stress score that reliably predicts timing of developmental milestones. Conclusions also validate Life History Theory notions of early reproduction as an evolved adaptive strategy intended to maximize reproductive success amidst unreliable circumstances. This research promises to broaden knowledge regarding the factors driving maturation, the complexity and scope of pubertal plasticity, and the ways in which human health is grounded in biocultural, social, and psychological variables. Investigating premature menarche within a multifactorial perspective may lead to new insights regarding female biology and behavior, and with this, facilitate novel strategies for treatment and prevention.
Trans and Gender Diverse Health Journeys in Alabama: Identifying Stressors and Resilience Factors Related to Health Care Experiences
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2024) Guitar, Amanda; Pritzker, Sonya E.; Lynn, Christopher D.
My dissertation explores the lived experiences of trans and gender diverse (TGD) people as they seek health care in Alabama. The provocation for this project arises from the numerous barriers TGD people face when it comes to accessing adequate health care, a problem that is particularly prevalent in the southeastern United States. Through thirty-one months of community-engaged ethnographic work, I explore the complexity of TGD health care in Alabama and the experiences of those seeking gender-affirming care in the state. Additionally, I examine the stressors and resilience factors associated with TGD health care in Alabama to demonstrate how the act of seeking health care can impact the health of TGD people. By taking a community-engaged approach that draws on theories of cultural impacts on health, gender minority stress and resilience, and social safety, my research does three things. First, I worked with community partners to identify topics of interest related to TGD health in Alabama and best practices for conducting research with TGD participants in the state. Second, I explore the barriers and facilitators to health care through the lived experiences of TGD people in Alabama and identify the ways in which these are linked to stressors and resilience factors. Third, I received community feedback on the underlying theoretical models that frame the current study and are utilized throughout TGD health research to improve how the results of this study can better reflect the experiences of the people in this project. Through this community feedback, I generated an expanded model of gender minority stressors and resilience factors that incorporates the experiences of my participants and demonstrates how the cultural context of Alabama impacts TGD health. In this way, my study aims to "queer" existing models of TGD health through the incorporation of local knowledge and lived experiences. This expanded model is primarily focused on including additional resilience/protective factors which was the area where my participants felt the original model was lacking. Through the stories of TGD Alabamians, my dissertation illustrates how TGD health care in Alabama is not simply working or not working, but is a complex mixture, highly dependent on other identity factors. My project contributes to anthropological understandings of gender minority stress as it relates to health care experiences, queer anthropology, and community collaboration to improve TGD health inequities in Alabama.

Browsing by Author "Lynn, Christopher D."

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