Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: A Cultural Analysis of Integrated Rehabilitation Medicine in Colombia

哥伦比亚是世界上地雷伤害率最高的国家之一。与此同时，哥伦比亚正在成为为战争伤员提供“综合”康复医疗的世界领先者。在艾米丽·马丁博士的指导下，研究生艾米丽·科恩将调查以下问题：“综合”康复对患者、非患者和医疗专业人员日常生活的社会和文化影响。研究将与在哥伦比亚波哥大、麦德林和卡利治疗被地雷炸伤的士兵和平民的康复单位有关的个人进行。科恩将采用混合方法的社会科学研究策略。她将记录下日常的对话和活动，让人们描绘出他们对残疾和康复的身体的看法，记录下以截肢者和康复医学为中心的公共表演，并参加难民家庭的非正式社交聚会，记录下笑话、歌曲、故事等非正式谈话。这些数据将揭示人们如何普遍表达对人体、自我、残疾、亲属关系和性别的理解。最后，她将跟踪相关的流行媒体并进行档案研究。作为康复医学的首批民族志研究之一，本研究将为长期战争社会创伤的社会和文化后果提供新的社会科学理论。它还可能导致更好的康复医学策略，以及对从业人员的工作对他们自己、他们的病人以及更大的国家和国际社会的意义的另一种理解。这项研究也将有助于社会科学家的教育。

Colombia has one of the highest rates of landmine injuries in the world. At the same time, Colombia is becoming a world leader in "integrated" rehabilitation medicine for the war wounded. Under the supervision of Dr. Emily Martin, graduate student, Emily Cohen, will investigate the following question: what is its social and cultural impact of "integrated" rehabilitation on the everyday lives of patients, non-patients, and medical professionals.Research will be conducted with individuals associated with rehabilitation units that treat soldiers and civilians injured by landmines in Bogota, Medellin, and Cali, Colombia. Ms. Cohen will use a mixed-methods social science research strategy. She will video tape everyday conversations and activities, ask individuals to draw their idea of the disabled and rehabilitated body, video tape public performances where amputees and rehabilitation medicine take center stage, and participate in casual social gatherings at refugee homes and record informal talk such as jokes, songs, and storytelling. These data will reveal how people popularly express understandings of the human body, the self, disability, kinship, and gender. Finally, she will track relevant popular media and do archival research.As one of the first ethnographic studies of rehabilitative medicine, the research will contribute to new social science theory regarding the social and cultural consequences of long-term war social trauma. It also may lead to better strategies for rehabilitative medicine as well as alternative understandings of what practitioners' work means to themselves, their patients, and the larger national and international community. The research also will contribute to the education of a social scientist.