denielleelliott
Lada Dedić's art from her Self Portrait: Artist's Brain series
about
Denielle Elliott / Undisciplined Ethnography
I am an Associate Professor at York University in the Departments of Anthropology and Social Science. I am currently the Graduate Program Director for the Science and Technology Studies program. My research for the large part focuses on arts-based ethnography and the intersections of colonialism, medicine and science, and politics. I have conducted fieldwork in British Columbia (Vancouver's Downtown Eastside on HIV/AIDS, epidemiological surveillance and colonial health) and in Nairobi and Kisumu, Kenya (‘Safari Science’, experimental medicine, scientific infrastructure, & the politics of transnational science).
Book an appointment to meet me with me: https://calendly.com/elliott_2035
My current project entitled "Neurological Imaginaries" explores the sensorial and affective dimensions of traumatic brain injuries.
Check out our French translation of A Different of Ethnography as Réinventer L'Ethnographie: Pratiques imaginatives et méthodologies créatives.
My book publication, Reimagining Science and Statecraft in Postcolonial Kenya: Stories from an African Scientist (Routledge 2019), is a collaborative account of immunologist Davy Koech's life's work building bioscientific infrastructure in Kenya and his relationship with former president Daniel arap Moi.
I was co-editor with Anna Harris of the #WritingLife Series with Somatosphere.
Why UNDISCIPLINED ETHNOGRAPHY? I evoke the idea of undisciplined for its double (triple?) meaning. Undisciplined in the sense of being unruly, disruptive, and disorderly. I want to engage in and encourage a type of ethnography that colours outside the lines, that makes us uncomfortable, that is rebellious! I also want to engage in a sort of ethnography that is not limited to the discipline of Anthropology, but that borrows promiscuously from Feminist Affect Studies, Science and Technology Studies, Postcolonial Theory, Visual Studies, Sound Studies and Performance Studies; experimenting with multimodal genres and montage; an ethnography not bound by its disciplinary history or conventions.
For more information on my research and publications, see research.
research
Trained as a sociocultural anthropologist, my work explores the politics and everyday ethics of medicine, science, and humanitarian interventions in postcolonial and settler colonial contexts. Since 2012, I have actively engaged in developing creative and art-based ethnographic strategies including multimedia installations, experimental genres of writing, and visual anthropology and as part of this I am one of the founding members (and was a co-curator until 2020) of the Centre for Imaginative Ethnography, a collaborative research collective dedicated to bridging social justice, creative arts, and ethnography both within and outside the academy. In 2017, we published an edited book, A different kind of ethnography: Imaginative practices and creative methodologies (University of Toronto Press).
My research and publications to date have focused on three core areas: First, the social and political-economic asymmetries in colonial and postcolonial medicine and the consequences for indigenous and postcolonial communities; second, the moral paradoxes embedded within ‘good intentioned’ interventions for these same communities; and third, the development of an arts-based, and undisciplined, approach in ethnography. My research interests have focused on the unintended consequences of a range of good intentioned interventions including Directly Observed Therapy (DOT) for HIV, PrEP clinical trials, inner city epidemiological surveillance, transnational science collaborations (global health), and securitization through medicine.
teaching
My teaching and mentoring reflect my research interests. I teach courses and hold workshops on ethnographic methods, writing, indigenous studies, science and technology studies and the social study of biomedicine. I am currently accepting graduate students interested in Arts-based Ethnography, Literary Ethnography, Postcolonial and Indigenous Science Studies, and African Studies.
Courses in my current rotation at York include:
STS 6001: Introduction to STS
SOSC 4145: The Brain, Self, and Society
STS 6005 A: Technoscientific Injustices (cluster)
ANSO 148: Ethnographic Writing (Geneva)
Guidelines for my current students can be found here.
Current Postdoctoral fellows
Patrick Mbullo Owuor, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Social Science, York University, July 1, 2022 - June 30, 2023.
Current graduate students
Jorge Daza, Supervisor, MA program, in Department of Science and Technology Studies, September 2022 – 2023.
Jennifer Lindsay, Supervisor, MA program, in Department of Science and Technology Studies, September 2022 – continuing (PT).
Laura Flórez, Co-Advisor, Doctoral Student in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Graduate Institute of Geneva, June 2022 -- continuing.
Michelle Charette, Supervisor, Doctoral Student in Department of Science and Technology Studies, September 2019 – continuing.
Em Panetta, Supervisor, Doctoral Student in Department of Science and Technology Studies, September 2022 – continuing.
Guita Banan, Supervisor, Doctoral Student in Department of Science and Technology Studies, September 2022 – continuing.
Sydney Neuman, Supervisor, Doctoral Student in the Gender, Feminist, and Women's Studies program at York University, September 2018 -- continuing.
Kathleen Cherrington, Supervisor, Doctoral Student in the Gender, Feminism, and Women's Studies program, September 2020 -- continuing.
Laura Farkas, Supervisor, Doctoral Student in Department of Science and Technology Studies, March 2021 – continuing.
Ingrid Bachner, Committee Member, Doctoral Student in the Gender, Feminism, and Women's Studies program, March 2021 -- continuing.
Drew Belsky, Committee Member, Doctoral Student in Science and Technology Studies, 2016 - continuing.
Past Students
Postdoctoral fellows
Sarah Blacker, The Science of Contamination, SSHRC funded, 2020 - 2021.
Doctoral / MA Students
Lina Pinto Garcia, Supervisor, Doctoral Student in Department of Science and Technology Studies, September 2014 – 2020.
Project: Tracing the paths of Glucantime: Unveiling the exclusionary practices of therapeutic citizenship
Brandon Moskun, Committee Member, Doctoral Student in Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, 2019 - 2022.
Wesley Jordan Oakes, Committee Member, Doctoral Student in Anthropology, 2014 – 2022.
Callum Sutherland, Committee Member, Doctoral Student in Science and Technology Studies, 2016 - 2021.
Project: Sockeye at the Boundary: Aboriginal Knowledge, the Great Divide, and the Calgary School.
Isabella Chawrun, Supervisor, MA in Social Anthropology, 2018 - 2020.
Project: Clinical Encounters and Critical Disability Studies
Jordan Hodgins, Supervisor, MA in Social Anthropology, 2018 - 2019.
Project: The social life of naxolone: 'The medicine that relieves but does not heal'
Peggy Chiapetta, Committee Member, Doctoral Student in Science and Technology Studies, 2016 - 2019.
Project: Innovation and Collaboration in Cancer Pharmacology: Understanding Open and Proprietary Mediating Devices.
Aaliah Maravilla-Carlos, Advisor, MA Student in Department of Science and Technology Studies, September 2021 – continuing.Alex Rewegan, Supervisor, MRP, Social Anthropology, 2015 - 2017.
Project: How brain plasticity matters to brain scientists
Brandon Moskun, Supervisor, MRP, Social Anthropology, 2016 - 2017.
Project: A Portrait of Comorbidity.
Patrick Mbullo, Supervisor, Anthropology, MA, 2013 – 2015.
Project: An Exploration of Chinese Development Projects in Kenya
Micah Anshan, MRP second reader, Science and Technology Studies, MA, 2012-2013
Project: ‘Evidence-Based’ or Based on Evidence?: Assessing the Debate Over Canada’s Harm-Reduction Evaluations.