Envisioning future roles: How women medical students navigate the figured world of medical school.

BACKGROUND: Women medical students experience tensions as they learn to become doctors. These tensions reflect the cultural world of medical school and clinical medicine, spaces that are highly gendered, racist and exclusionary. This study describes how women medical students are envisioning themselves as future doctors during their first 2 years of medical school while experiencing these tensions. METHODS: Using Figured Worlds theory, this qualitative study focused on four participants from a larger longitudinal study. Each participant was interviewed four times over a 2-year period using narrative methodology and provided multiple written reflections during their first year of medical school. Analysis was performed using deductive methods reflecting Figured Worlds theory. RESULTS: Participants offered storied experiences about how they understood their place in the figured world, ways they enacted agency and how they responded to contradictions they encountered in medical school as they learned to become doctors. These three findings reflect concepts of Figured Worlds theory: positionality and discourse, power and agency, and improvisation. These findings also illuminate ways women medical students are navigating gendered and hierarchical structures of medical school to reimagine their roles in medicine. CONCLUSION: Participants' stories illuminate that woman medical students' lived experiences shaped their decision to enter medical school and continue to shape how they navigate their educational experience. These interactions have implications for their future roles as physicians and how medical schools respond to cultures of teaching and learning that may not recognise these students' positionality and potential agency in medical school and clinical medicine.

The resilience and viability of farmers markets in the United States as an alternative food network: case studies from Michigan during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper examines the resilience of farmers markets in Michigan to the system shock of the global COVID-19 pandemic, questioning how the response fits into market goals of food sovereignty. Adapting to shifting public health recommendations and uncertainty, managers implemented new policies to create a safe shopping experience and expand food access. As consumers directed their shopping to farmers markets looking for safer outdoor shopping, local products, and foods in short supply at grocery stores, market sales skyrocketed with vendors reporting selling more than ever before, but the longevity of this change remains unclear. Our data collected via semi-structured interviews with market managers and vendors, and survey data from customers from 2020 to 21, suggest that despite the widespread impact of COVID-19, there is not sufficient evidence consumers will continue to shop at farmers markets at the rates they did in 2020-21. Furthermore, reasons consumers flocked to farmers markets do not align with market priorities for increased food sovereignty, as increased sales alone are not a sufficient driver for this goal. We question how markets can contribute to broader sustainability goals or serve as alternatives to capitalist and industrial modes of agricultural production, problematizing the role of markets in the food sovereignty movement.

Emergency Food Provision for Children and Families during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Examples from Five U.S. Cities.

As lockdown and school closure policies were implemented in response to the coronavirus, the federal government provided funding and relaxed its rules to support emergency food provision, but not guidance on best practices for effectiveness. Accordingly, cities developed a diverse patchwork of emergency feeding programs. This article uses qualitative data to provide insight into emergency food provision developed in five cities to serve children and families. Based on our qualitative analysis, we find that the effectiveness of local approaches appears to depend on: (i) cross-sector collaboration, (ii) supply chains, and (iii) addressing gaps in service to increased risk populations.

Good Food, Bad Food, and White Rice: Understanding Child Feeding Using Visual-Narrative Elicitation.

Visual-narrative elicitation, a process combining photo elicitation and pile sorting in applied medical anthropology, sheds light on food consumption patterns in urban areas of Vanuatu where childhood malnutrition is a persistent problem. Groups of participants took photographs of the foods they feed their children, and the resources and barriers they encounter in accessing foodstuffs. This revealed how imported and local foods are assigned value as "good" or "bad" foods when contributing to dietary diversity and creating appropriate meals for children, particularly in the context of consuming white rice. The process of gathering and working with photographs illuminated the complex negotiations in which caregivers engaged when making food and nutritional choices for their children. At the nexus of visual and medical anthropology, the visual-narrative elicitation process yielded nuanced, comprehensive understandings of how caregivers value the various foods they feed their children.