Lupina Fellows 2001–2002

Barry Burciul | Weizhen Dong | Audrey Laporte | Michael Polanyi | Annette Timm

Barry Burciul (Lupina Research Associate 2001/2)

Biography: Barry Burciul is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science. He is also a member of Medecins Sans Frontieres' "Drugs for Neglected Diseases Working Group," and is assistant to James Orbinski, the Chairman of the Working Group. Barry specializes in global politics. In general terms, he is interested in the global governance of crisis response - i.e., the structures and practices we use to deal with crises in both human security and state security. His specific areas of study include: global health governance; the politics of humanitarianism, humanitarian intervention and assistance; and the effects and effectiveness of economic sanctions.

Project Abstract: Barry's dissertation departs from the observation that the concept of "humanitarianism" is used by various actors (e.g., NGOs, states, militaries, pharmaceutical corporations) in very different ways, and often toward radically divergent ends. These differences carry profound implications for the relations of accountability that form around issues of global health. The dissertation therefore seeks to understand how one actor rather than another - and one act rather than another - comes to be viewed as legitimately 'humanitarian' by other relevant actors. In other words, it seeks to account for the formation of social rules that delineate which actors are viewed as legitimate and competent to deal with certain global health issues, and what constitutes an appropriate act or policy in that context.

Weizhen Dong (Lupina Research Associate 2001/2)

Biography: DONG Weizhen is a PhD candidate at the Department of Sociology, University of Toronto. She received her MA degree in development studies from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands. She has been working as a researcher at the Asian Institute of Technology and Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Her main publications include Women's Inner World (1992), Urban Women's Employment and Unemployment in an Age of Transition: A case study of Shanghai, China (1996), etc. She has also done research in the areas of rural industrial development, international migration, private economy and Chinese networks, etc.

Project Abstract: Weizhen's dissertation will be a study on China's health care policy: "Healthcare in an Age of Transition (1980-2001), A case study of Shanghai, China". This study aims to explore what would enable a society, founded on equity, to provide equitable health care during transition to a market economy. Go to Working Paper.

Audrey Laporte (Lupina Post-Doctoral Fellow 2001/2)

Biography: Audrey Laporte is currently Assistant Professor of Health Economics in the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

Michael Polanyi (Lupina Research Associate 2001/2)

Biography: Michael Polanyi is an Associate Scientist at the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto, where he studies the ways in which workplace characteristics, work experi ences and socio-economic conditions affect health. He is also interested in collaborative processes through which researchers can contribute to social change. He has just completed a two-year participatory research project led by injured workers to better understand and to work to change the compensation and return-to-work system in Ontario. He completed a PhD in Environmental Studies at York University in 1999. He has worked professionally in the areas of adult education, community development and health promotion, and has been active on a range of peace and social justice issues over the past two decades.

Project Abstract: (In collaboration with Emile Tompa) The economies of industrialized nations are undergoing a fundamental transformation. A "new economy" is emerging characterized by increased global competition, increased reliance on information and information technology, a shift from the production of hard goods to the provision of services, and the adoption of strategies of flexible production. Researchers are only starting to understand that life experiences in various realms - workplace, family and community - are being profoundly affected by changes in the economy. There is reason to believe that the direct and indirect health implications of the new economy are significant: the factors that are increasingly being shown to impact on health -income level, income distribution, job control, job security, social support, work-family balance - are being impacted upon by the new economy. This project will: a) identify the key characteristics of work experiences in the new economy; b) synthesize current understanding of the ways in which social conditions impact on health; c) outline the direct and indirect health impacts of the new economy; and d) stimulate discussion about potential policy directions for improving population health in the new economy. Go to Working Paper.

Annette Timm (Lupina Research Associate 2001/2)

Biography: Annette is originally from Vancouver and did an Honours BA in History at UBC. (She also spent a year at the University of Augsburg, Germany, and a semester at the Universite de Savoie, in Chambery France). Her graduate degrees are both from the University of Chicago, where Annette graduated in December 1999. She is currently working on turning her dissertation ("The Politics of Fertility: Population Politics and Health Care in Berlin, 1919-1972") into a book. Annette has the following publications: "Prostitution, Venereal Disease and Masculinity in the Third Reich," in Sexuality and German Fascism, a special Issue of the Journal of the History of Sexuality, edited by Dagmar Herzog. Forthcoming in 2001; "The Ambivalent Outsider: Prostitution, Promiscuity and VD Control in Nazi Berlin," in Social Outsiders in the Third Reich, eds. Robert Gellately and Nathan Stoltzfus (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, forthcoming 2001); "Guarding the Health of Worker Families in the GDR: Socialist Health Care, Bevölkerungspolitik, and Marriage Counselling, 1945-1972," in. Arbeiter in der SBZ-DDR, eds. Peter Hübner and Klaus Tenfelde (Essen: Klartext, 1999), pp. 463-95; and "The Legacy of Bevölkerungspolitik: Venereal Disease Control and Marriage Counselling in Post-WWII Berlin," Canadian Journal of History/Annales canadiennes d'histoire XXXIII (August 1998): 173-214.

Project Abstract: While at the Munk School, Annette plans to conduct research that will put the finishing touches on her first book, while providing the outlines of a second. The first goal is to correct one of the weaknesses of her dissertation: its failure to put German population politics into a truly comparative perspective. She plans to conduct research on population policies in other European (and possibly also North American) countries. The longer-term goal is to write a short book that will define population politics for both a general audience and for historians and social scientists looking for a general overview of this complex jumble of policies to use both as a guide to future research and as a course reading. Annette feels that there is a pressing need for such a book, since interest in the history of population politics has increased along with the present-day concerns about reproductive technologies and discussions about appropriate government responses to declining birth rates. The starting point for this research is a definition of population policy that is very expansive and that reaches far beyond the classic demographic definitions (hence her use of the term "population politics") to encompass a broad range of social and health policy measures directed towards the goal of increasing the birth rate and combatting endemic, chronic diseases. Go to Working Paper.