Susan Levine

My research interests cluster around projects that focus on the anthropology of childhood and medical anthropology. My Ph.D research (1997-2000) on children’s employment in South Africa’s wine lands raised questions related to children’s rights, research ethics, the political economy of race, gender, class and age, and the impact of child labour legislation in post apartheid South Africa. With the high rates of TB, HIV/AIDS, FAS, and chronic malnutrition among children living on farms, my concerns have also focussed with the ways in which structural inequality impacts childhood experience, and the ways in which applied research can identify spaces for political intervention. Funded by the NRF, I support six post graduate students in the department whose research articulates with the question of children and healing. Examples include projects on the impact of xenophobia among child refugees, water born illness among children in informal settlements, chronic care facilities for children with terminal illness, children and HIV/AIDS, the question of international development projects for children, and children living with cancer.
Trained as a visual anthropologist, I am also invested in training students in visual research methods, including the production of photo essays, the use of film and photo elicitation, and the serious use of film and photography for scholarly knowledge production. Best know for my work on a media intervention campaign to combat stigma related to HIV/AIDS, I have brought together my research interests in medical with visual anthropology.
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