Affiliate Faculty, Lecturer, University of California San Francisco
Social Medicine Consulting Clinician, San Francisco General Hospital
Contributing Editor, Platypus: The CASTAC Blog
Research Interests
- Biotech
- cancer
- critical public health
- Cuba
- Medical anthropology
- pharmaceuticals
- Postsocialism
- vaccines
About Naomi
Medical anthropologist and public health nurse practitioner in San Francisco. Her areas of expertise include medical anthropology, STS, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, postsocialism, social medicine, and critical public health. She has conducted ethnographic research examining (post)socialist technoscientific formations through Cuban cancer vaccines. Her new research examines a novel program providing thousands of rooms in tourist hotels to persons experiencing homelessness during the COVID19 pandemic.
Contact
Contributions to Platypus: The CASTAC Blog
View all of Naomi's posts on Platypus: The CASTAC Blog.
Through Mother’s Eyes: Subjectivity Reimagines Technology in Documentary Film
An Interview with Filmmaker Natalia Almada and Sound Designer Dave Cerf
Anthropology and Documentary
Anthropology and documentary are shaped by integrating subjectivity with philosophical and ethical questions. This post draws from an interview with filmmaker Natalia Almada and sound designer Dave Cerf, a couple with two young children, about their new film, Users (2021), winner of the 2021 Sundance Documentary Directing award. In contrast to Almada’s prior films which are deeply rooted in Mexico, this cinematic documentary seems unbounded by geography, taking as its starting point a mother’s interrogation of the effects of technology on humanity and earth. This interview focuses on how the structuring choices of filming and editing afforded an opportunity to generate a novel sense of the epic nature of the domestic sphere on par with the vastness of wasteland and sea. (more…)