Leading Researcher on Health and Social Inequities, Seth Holmes, to speak at John Martinson Honors College
Medical anthropologist Seth Holmes, most notable for authoring the powerful and culturally impactful book Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States, will visit the Purdue University campus for the sixth annual Aronson Family Science and Society Lecture.
Made possible by the generous donation of the Aronson family and hosted by the John Martinson Honors College in collaboration with the Institute for a Sustainable Future, and the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Holmes will headline his campus visit on Thursday March 2 with a keynote lecture on migrant farmwork and its implications on health and food systems.
The keynote lecture will take place on March 2, 2023 in Honors College and Residences North in Honors Hall at 5:30 p.m.. Holmes’ lecture titled “How Social Inequity Comes to be Treated as Natural” will challenge the audience to consider the experiences of work, health and health care among indigenous Latin American migrant farmworkers in the United States. Holmes will present case studies that analyze the realities of migration and farm work where each intersect with health and social inequity. The lecture is free and open to the public. A reception will follow with light refreshments and an opportunity to meet and visit with Dr. Holmes.
Holmes will open his visit by meeting with graduate students and participation in a panel discussion on Wednesday March 1 at 3:30 p.m. with Purdue faculty from the John Martinson Honors College, Department of Public Health, Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, and the Department of Anthropology. The discussion will include thoughtful critique on the topic of race, place, and economics on issues of work, migration, environmental and public health. The panel discussion will be in the auditorium at Burton Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship. Light refreshments will follow the panel in the Burton Morgan Café.
Additional groups promoting the campus visit include the Department of Anthropology, the Latino Cultural Center, the Purdue chapter of the Multicultural Efforts to end Sexual Assault (MESA) program and the Purdue AgrAbility program.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Wednesday March 1
Panel Discussion
3:30 p.m. | Burton Morgan, Auditorium
Reception with Light Refreshments
4:30 p.m. | Burton Morgan Café
Thursday March 2
Keynote Lecture
5:30 p.m. | Honors College & Residences North, Honors Hall
Reception with Light Refreshments
6:30 p.m. | Honors College & Residences North, Innovation Forum
About Seth Homes, MD, Ph.D.
Dr. Holmes is currently a Chancellor's Professor in Society and Environment and Medical Anthropology and affiliated faculty in Public Health at UC Berkeley. He is Founder of the Berkeley Center for Social Medicine and Co-Director of the MD/PhD Track in Medical Anthropology coordinated between UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco. A cultural and medical anthropologist and internal medicine physician, he has worked on social hierarchies, health inequities, and the ways in which such asymmetries are naturalized, normalized, and resisted in the contexts of transnational im/migration, agro-food systems, and health care.
About the Aronson Family Science and Society Lecture Series
The Aronson Family Science and Society Lecture is an annual series welcoming leading researchers and pioneers in the fields of science and social impact to our West Lafayette campus. Visiting scholars enjoy several days at Purdue interacting with faculty and students, participation in a panel discussion with Purdue faculty on topics of cultural impact with a final presentation to a large group of faculty, staff, students, and members of the general public. Previous speakers for the series have included Captain Scott Kelly, NASA astronaut and commander of the International Space Station, Moira Gunn, a former NASA scientist, Purdue alumna, and host of the NPR program “Tech Nation.”, and a West Lafayette native, Dr. Katie Bouman, who as a member of the Event Horizon Telescope team helped to capture the first image of a black hole.
Writer: Leslie Valiant lvaliant@purdue.edu