Nancy Scheper-Hughes
Anthropologist (b. 1944).
Nancy Scheper-Hughes (born 1944) is an American anthropologist known for her work on the body, hunger, illness, medicine, motherhood, psychiatry, psychosis, social suffering, violence, genocide, death squads, and human trafficking. She is Chancellor’s Professor Emerita of Anthropology and co-founded the PhD program in Critical Medical Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, with Margaret Lock. Born in New York City, she earned a B.A. in Social Sciences from Berkeley in 1970 and a doctorate in anthropology there in 1976, later completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard’s Laboratory of Human Development.
Her first book, *Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics* (1979), examined mental illness among bachelor farmers in rural Ireland and won the Margaret Mead Award. It sparked controversy, particularly in Ireland, for its portrayal of family disintegration amid agrarian economic collapse. A later edition addressed ethical challenges in ethnography. Her subsequent work, *Death Without Weeping* (1993), studied violence in everyday life in Brazil, focusing on mothers who rationed care toward sickly infants. Critics debated her descriptions of mothers hastening the deaths of children deemed lacking a will for life; the book became a classic in medical anthropology.
Scheper-Hughes has conducted fieldwork in Brazil, Argentina, Israel, South Africa, Moldova, the Philippines, and the United States. She co-founded Organs Watch and advises the European Union, Interpol, the United Nations, and the Vatican on organ trafficking. Her investigations into an international ring of brokers and living organ sellers led to FBI arrests. She has testified in trafficking prosecutions and witnessed kidney sales from impoverished communities in Recife to Israeli patients in South Africa. Her scholarship introduced terms such as “the mindful body,” “neo-cannibalism,” and “the genocidal continuum,” and she has helped popularize the work of Franco Basaglia, Paulo Freire, and Josué de Castro. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Brazil and has been active in civil rights, Catholic Worker movements, and anti-nuclear protests.
- born
- 1944
Lore & Background
Nancy Scheper-Hughes (born 1944) is an American anthropologist known for her work on the body, hunger, illness, motherhood, violence, and human trafficking. She is Chancellor’s Professor Emerita of Anthropology and co-founder of the PhD program in Critical Medical Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her fieldwork has taken place in Northeast Brazil, Argentina, Israel, South Africa, Moldova, the Philippines, and the United States. She is the founding director of Organs Watch, an organization that researches the global trade in human organs, and has served as a consultant for the European Union, Interpol, the United Nations, and the Vatican on organ trafficking. She has testified in prosecutions of traffickers and witnessed the organ trade involving Israeli patients and impoverished kidney sellers from Recife. Her books include *Death Without Weeping*, a study of maternal neglect and infant mortality in Brazil, and *Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics*, an examination of mental illness in rural Ireland. She has coined terms such as “the mindful body,” “neo-cannibalism,” and “the genocidal continuum.” A central theme in her scholarship is how violence marks the bodies of the poor and vulnerable. She has also worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Brazil and as an activist for rural workers, street children, and the homeless mentally ill.
Reader's Guide
Nancy Scheper-Hughes is an American anthropologist known for studying the anthropology of the body, hunger, illness, medicine, motherhood, psychiatry, psychosis, social suffering, violence, genocide, death squads, and human trafficking. Her fieldwork has taken place in Northeast Brazil, Argentina, Israel, South Africa, Moldova, the Philippines, and the United States. She is the author of several books, including *Death Without Weeping*, which examines violence in everyday life in Brazil and became a classic in medical anthropology, and *Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics*, a study of mental illness in rural Ireland that won the Margaret Mead Award. Her work often explores how violence marks the bodies of the vulnerable and poor, and she has coined terms such as the "mindful body," "neo-cannibalism," and the "genocidal continuum." Scheper-Hughes co-founded Organs Watch, an organization researching the global traffic in human organs, and has consulted on organ trafficking for the European Union, Interpol, the United Nations, and the Vatican. She has testified in prosecutions of human traffickers and investigated international rings of brokers and living organ sellers, leading to FBI arrests. Her scholarship also popularized the work of radical psychiatrist Franco Basaglia, educator Paulo Freire, and ecologist Josué de Castro for North American audiences.
Did You Know?
- Nancy Scheper-Hughes is listed among notable anthropologists in the source.
- Her birth year is given as 1944 in the source.
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