Aaron Denham

Biography

As a medical and psychological anthropologist, I study the cultural dimensions and subjective experiences of illness, well-being, and healing. I am particularly interested in how people experience, understand, and derive meaning from misfortune, uncertainty, andAaron_Denham_fieldwork illness. My work integrates individual experiences with the complexities of people's broader structural, political-economic, biological, and historical contexts.

Research Interest

Sociocultural, medical, and psychological anthropology Global health and development studies Spirit children and infanticide discourse and practice Childhood, the life course, and aging Family and intergenerational relations Mental health and historical and intergenerational trauma Misfortune, meaning, and disorder Risk, uncertainty, and decision-making Divination practices I am comfortable working within phenomenological, symbolic/interpretive, narrative, critical (political-economic and political-ecological), and psychodynamic methods and theories. Design thinking and research as a form of applied anthropology. Regional specialties include Ghana, Burkina Faso (and West Africa generally), North America (including First Nations peoples), and Australia.