Alison Heller, a Campbell Resident Scholar at the School for Advanced Research (SAR) and an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology, will present her research, “Interrogating the Superlative Sufferer: Experiencing Obstetric Fistula and Treatment Seeking in Niger,” at the SAR opening colloquium in November.

“Obstetric fistula, a maternal childbirth injury that results in chronic incontinence, is presented within donor and media discourse as a profoundly stigmatizing condition, purportedly resulting in divorce by husbands, abandonment by kin, exile from communities, and high rates of depression. Donor agencies and the global media generate and circulate a narrative of a monolithic sufferer–she is young, stigmatized, and finds physical and social redemption through surgical intervention. Based on eighteen months of ethnographic research at four fistula repair centers in Niger, Dr. Heller complicates this narrative by demonstrating that most women with fistula exhibit significant personal resilience, receive continued social and familial support, and, unexpectedly, experience ambiguous surgical outcomes. In doing so, Heller interrogates the existing logics of the fistula narrative that have had the unintended effect of obscuring global structural inequalities; diverting attention away from systemic health access reforms; and resulting in sometimes harmful fistula prevention, treatment, and reintegration interventions.”

For more information, visit: http://sarweb.org/index.php?scholar_heller&bblinkid=24823835&bbemailid=…