Barbara Anderson

Barbara Andersen holds a Ph.D in Sociocultural Anthropology from NYU. She received her BA (2002) and MA (2006) in Sociology and Anthropology from Simon Fraser University, and a second MA (2008) in Anthropology from NYU. Her dissertation research, beginning October 2010, is an ethnographic study of nursing education in the provincial town of Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. The purpose of this study is to investigate how nursing education prepares students for the challenges of working as medical professionals in conditions of heightened gender inequality and gender violence. Barbara is interested in bringing the rich scholarship on gender and cultural change in Papua New Guinea to bear on questions about the role of scientific and medical training in processes of social transformation. Her other interests include the gendered consequences of resource extraction projects, land tenure reform and monetization; Papua New Guineans' conceptions of race and class; and missionary medicine.