People
William Lucas
PhD/MPH Student
Contact
Email: wlucas@mail.usf.edu
Education
- M.A., Anthropology, California State University, Long Beach
- B.A., Anthropology, California State University, Dominguez Hills
Advisor
teaching
ANT 2410 Cultural Anthropology
Research
I am interested in analyzing how food and nutrition are entangled with other political economic dynamics, influencing social inequity within medical anthropology. By analyzing these intersections, my research aims to illuminate how they are constituted by advancing theory on the local-global nexus as well as applied paradigms that can help ameliorate global health disparities. This perspective is what makes anthropology relevant. Using syndemics theory as an empirical framework, my research focuses on health and healing navigated by Q’eqchi’ Maya and Garifuna situated near a Caribbean coastal tourist destination in Guatemala. As these groups have experienced histories of communicable and non-communicable disease infection, this research will explore the biocultural interactions contributing to different disease etiologies both within and near the Sarstun Temash Nature Reserve. I am interested in advancing discourses on structural vulnerability, embodiment, health equity/disparities, im/migration, infectious diseases, food and nutrition, and global health.
My own thinking within anthropology explores how ontologies are constituted, issues of biopolitics, and other phenomenological questions generated through ethnography, such as notions of deservingness, moral economies, and regimes of care. These are also reflected in my membership with various anthropological organizations, such as the Society for Applied Anthropology, the Society for Medical Anthropology, and the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition.