Doctoral Dissertation Research: An ethnographic study of cross-cultural perceptions and experiences of disability

Arizona State University, Scottsdale AZ

Investigators

Abstract

Researchers have shown that one's pereceptions and experiences of one's physical self are affected by language, culture, and ethnicity. The question the research funded by this award is asking is, what happens when people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds must interact in relation to their biologies? How do those differences get negotiated and with what result? While this can be seen as an interesting theroetical question, it also has important practical implications, such as when a provider of healthcare services comes from one cultural group and the recipient comes from another. Arizona State University anthropology doctoral student, Ms. Dimitra Mari Varvarezou, with the guidance of Dr. Elizabeth A. Brandt and Dr. Jonathan Maupin, will investigate the problem through the lens of of disability. She will focus on how indigenous epistemologies affect Diné (Navajo) adults' experience of physical disabilities, as well as the understandings of Diné individuals who care for them; examine the epistemologies and understandings of physical disabilities held by Anglo service providers and healthcare professionals; and determine what happens, and why, when the two groups come together. This research will be conducted in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area and in off-Reservation locations. Varvarezou will employ a mixed methods design, including participant observation; free lists and cultural consensus analysis to determine cultural models of physical disability, symptoms, causes, and treatment; and focused semi-structured interviews. The researcher will also assess the patterns of agreement and degree of variation in relation to disability perceptions among the Diné, among Anglo healthcare workers, and between the two cultural groups. Findings from this research will promote a better understanding of the role that social perceptions play in cross-cultural healthcare. Findings will also contribute to theorization of cultural negotiations in cross-cultural situations.