BACKGROUND
AND RESEARH INTERESTS
I am an Anthropologist and Public
Health Practitioner. My professional interests
traverse Africa and the African Diaspora from
Cape Town
to
Canada
. I have been associated as faculty with the
African and African Diaspora Studies Program and Anthropology for the past
decade as Visiting Professor and as Adjunct Professor. Over this period of time I have contributed
to broadening the curriculum and course offerings while consolidating an array
of disciplines. As an Anthropologist the
program has given me room to do this and in this regard the new merging of the
disciplines of Sociology, Anthropology and Geography suits my repertoire of
research interest.
I have had association with a
number of applied research projects, an opportunity presented through a three
year Post Doctoral Fellowship in the
Comprehensive
Drug
Research
Center, Department of
Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Miami Medical School. Research initiatives included applying
medical anthropology methodology to assess the health problems of the homeless
in five metropolitan areas of the State of
Florida, African American Men addicted to
Crack Cocaine, The Haitian Gang Study and the Haitian Adolescent Project. I conducted Needs Assessments of 52 Community
Based organizations, extending technical expertise and implemented program
evaluations with the Department of Psychiatry at the
University of
Miami. These are interdisciplinary research
initiatives. Much of my writing is
tucked in research reports, and a good deal of my efforts have been in project
design, the construction of questionnaires, and training research
interviewers. My dissertation research
conducted in the seventies prepared me for this on the ground urban
research. At the height of social change
and demographic shifts from country to town in the
Caribbean,
I focused on Malnutrition in urban Kingston Shanty towns. Inspired by the barefoot doctor technology of
China
, I went with baby
scale, height board and calipers into the Shanty Towns of urban
Kingston. The great scholarship of UWI in those days,
including Walter Rodney that came in and out and gave me direction in this
work, and particularly Rastafari coming down out of the hills in greater
numbers allowed a “grounding with my brethren’ at that time, and in my own growth and development, produced a fullness which has yet to be told.
My passion for assessing the intersection of
health and culture emerged early in my academic career. I had studied archeology
as an undergraduate, which included field school every summer digging Iroquois
sites from
Watertown
New York to Montréal. The social responsibility of the 1970’s encouraged
something else. I had started to meet
Iroquois, and they were not so pleased with disturbing their sites. My
engagement in the civil rights movements which extended to environmental and
women concerns directed me toward the applied issues I have described.
The methodology of anthropology
is a valuable tool for area studies disciplines. Cultural theorist often find qualitative
research a first step in initiating further study. This is one of the important elements I bring
to students researching
Africa and the African
Diaspora. Intersecting the disciplines takes
collaboration today. Programs focused on
area studies are developmental task. They require learning respect for other disciplines, the capacity to
listen and teach one another’s scholarship. The AADS program is at an exciting juncture at FIU today, with a new law
school and a new medical school. We see ourselves as important informers to
these entities, conducting collaborative researcher with them, and reason to
continue to broaden our agenda. My
attendance at the Global
Summit on HIV/AIDS, Traditional Medicine and Indigenous Knowledge in
Ghana
, 2006 confirmed the positive
advancements in both law and medicine the African and African Diaspora lens
bring forward in these important areas and the need to strengthen connection. As we construct our program, we construct
larger architectures of ‘seeing’ through broader lens and establishing
ourselves as consultants on many important issues that impact the geographic
areas of the world where we share expertise. I am delighted to be a part of this community
of scholars.
EDUCATION
University of
Miami,
Medical
School,
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health
Masters in Public Health 2004
University of
Miami,
Medical
School.
Postdoctoral Fellow, Dept. of Epidemiology and Public
Health, 1998, Certification in Epidemiological Research, Prevention and
Substance Use. June 2000.
SUNY
Buffalo,
Buffalo,
NY
Ph.D. in Anthropology, 1993
Dissertation: Malnutrition in Urban
Kingston Shanty Towns,
Jamaica
: The God Factor
Boston
University,
Boston
Mass.
Special Student in Medical Anthropology 1975
University of
Washington,
Seattle,
WA
Ph.C. in Physical Anthropology, 1972 (Ph.C. is a certified
degree of candidacy)
COURSES
Teaching
a number of core courses in the undergraduate certificate program through African
and African Diaspora Studies (AADS) I cover areas of Biodiversity, Health
Issues in the African World, Myth, Ritual, Mysticism, African Film,
Environmental Issues in the Caribbean, Caribbean Cultures, Popular Culture, Youth
Violence and Globalization and through these issues intersect culture, society,
economy in Africa and the African Diaspora.
SELECT
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Tafari,
I. and L.H. Marcelin (in
publication) Haitian Youth in
Miami: Gender, Sexuality & the
Implications for Substance Use and HIV/AIDS.
In: Sex,
Power, and Taboo: Gender and HIV in the Caribbean and Beyond, Ian Randle Press,
Kingston, 2008.
o David R. Brown, A. Hernandez, G. Saint-Jean, S.
Evans,
I. Tafari, L.G. Brewster,
M.J. Celestin, C. Gomez-Estefan,
F. Regalado, S. Akal, B. Nierenberg, E. D. Kauschinger, R. Schwartz, and J.
Bryan Page (2008) A Participatory Action
Research Pilot Study of Urban Health Disparities Using Rapid Assessment
Response and Evaluation. Am. J. Public Health, Jan. 2008;
98:28-38,
o Tafari,
I. 2008 Entry for the Encyclopedia of the
African Diaspora, “Health in the African World”, publisher ABC-CLIO, Inc.
produced by: African New World Studies. The Entry is currently in Press
o Preparation of a
manuscript based on research implemented on
South
Beach,
Miami Fl. Memorial Day Weekend, 2007. “Get Smart & Get Swabbed” A
Behavioral Assessment.
CONTACT
Florida
International
University
Arts and Sciences
Biscayne
Bay Campus
3000
NE 151st Street
ACI 308
North
Miami, Fl.
33181
308-919-5593
tafarii@fiu.edu
