Maria Tapias
Visiting Scholar 2003-2004
Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies (CILAS)

Area of Expertise: Tapias is trained as a medical anthropologist, and is particularly interested in health and gender, the anthropology of emotions and in violence and subjectivity.

Country of Expertise: Bolivia

Current Research Project: Tapias's current research examines discourses of infants' and children's health as vehicles through which social and medical judgments are made regarding maternal care-taking practices. In Punata, Bolivia emotions linked to social and economic hardship (such as rage and sorrow) are considered principal etiological agents for the onset of numerous illnesses among women. In lactating women, these emotions find release through their breast milk and are seen to cause illness not in the mother's themselves but in their breastfeeding infants. Tapias explores how mothers accepted, challenged or contested such views and how they negotiated the politics of blame that emerged regarding who was at fault for their infant's illnesses.

Project Title: Infant Illness and the Politics of Blame in Punata, Bolivia

Academic Background: Tapias received her B.A from Sarah Lawrence College in 1988 and her M.A (1996) and Ph.D. (2001) from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

Tapias is an assistant professor in the department of anthropology at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa.

Selected Publications

• "Fluid Emotions", Sociality, and Illness among Punateña Women in Bolivia" article under review.
• "Disciplining Emotions and Motherhood" paper presented at the 102nd Annual American Anthropological Association Meeting,Chicago, IL. 2003.