I am a Doctor in Anthropology with a specialization on medical anthropology. My main interests are biomedical knowledge and practices, especially paediatrics; children’s experience of cancer treatment, end-of-life and palliative care, medical assistance in dying, chronicity and disability, and resilience and hope. I work with children, families, and health care professionals to understand children’s experiences of blood cancers.

Children and family; mental health; critical disability studies; emotions; death, dying and end-of-life care; pain and suffering; palliative care; ethnographic research at medical and clinical institutions; qualitative health methods; doctor-patient relationships; health policy; quality and dignity of life; medical assistance in dying, and COVID-19 politics.

2022. ‘I will grab a rifle and I will kill that bug!’: the role of children’s humour in navigating painful treatments in a paediatric hospital in Argentina. Children & Society, 00, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12642

2021a   Threshold: Emergency Responders on the US-Mexico Border.  Jusionyte, Ieva (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018). PoLAR. https://doi.org/10.1111/plar.12426

2021b  Gómez-Ramírez O, Medeiros P, Wainer R, Iyamu. I. Does the ‘Canada COVID-19 alert’ app stand up to critical scrutiny? A rapid qualitative assessment. BMJ Open 2021;11:doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2021-QHRN.13

2021c  “COVID-19: Complicity, complacency, and connections.” FocaalBlog, 22 November. https://www.focaalblog.com/2021/11/22/rafael-wainer-covid-19-complicity-complacency-and-connections

2020a  The metropolis and mental life in the age of COVID-19: Delaying descent into the blasé attitude. Somatosphere, online at: http://somatosphere.net/2020/metropolis-mental-life.html/

2020b  Wainer, Rafael and Radosta, Darío-Iván. Duelo en Escuelas: Una mirada a partir de la pandemia por Covid-19. Entrevista a Alejandro Nespral y Maria Luz Hurtado sobre el Proyecto «Duelo en Escuelas» en San Carlos de Bariloche (Río Negro). Revista Espoiler, url: http://espoiler.sociales.uba.ar/2020/10/01/duelo-en-escuelas-una-mirada-a-partir-de-la-pandemia-por-covid-19/

2019. Permeable Bodies: Children’s Bodily Boundaries When Navigating Cancer Treatment. Medicine Anthropology Theory, Section Dissertating, url: http://www.medanthrotheory.org/read/11352/permeable-bodies

2013. The Dignity of Children: How to Evaluate Bodies’ (Im)Permeability. In Reframing Disability and Quality of Life. Narelle Warren and Lenore Manderson, eds. Social Indicators Research Series, 52. Springer Netherlands. Pp. 61–78.

2011. Death, Dying, and Biomedicine: “Thinking with Film” as a Teaching Resource for Medical Anthropologists. Anthropology News. Society for Medical Anthropology Section. 52(9): 40, December.

2010. La bio-política de los transplantes o ¿Qué está detrás de la “Salvación de Vidas”? Cuadernos del Instituto Nacional de Antropología y Pensamiento Latinoamericano 22: 251–254.

Roman, L.; Noble, S.; Wainer, R. and Young, A. 2009a. No Time for Nostalgia: Asylums, Residential Schools, Medicalized Colonialism in British Columbia (1859-1897) and Artistic Praxis for Social Transformation. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 22(1): 17–63.

2009b. “Sobre acciones, silencios y un sentido de humor particular en un equipo de cuidados paliativos.” AIBR, Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana 4(3):409–42.

2008. “Acompañando a La Gente En El Último Momento de Su Vida: Reflexiones En Torno a La Construcción Paliativista de La Dignidad En El Final de La Vida.” Runa 28:111–40.

2005a. “‘Yo no te puedo decir cuánto sino cómo.’ Construcción y manejo de la esperanza en el final de la vida, desde la perspectiva profesional de un equipo de cuidados paliativos.” ANUARIO DE ESTUDIOS EN ANTROPOLOGÍA SOCIAL, 2004. Centro de Antropología Social del IDES y Editorial Antropofagia, Buenos Aires, pp. 187–197.

2005b. Ampliando el campo semántico de los transplantes, o cómo construir un “lenguaje divergente de la retórica médica de sacrificios, donaciones, altruismo, y salvación de vidas”. Potlatch 2(3): 150–156.

PUBLIC OUTREACH

2021  Una reflexión sobre el duelo con estudiantes universitarios en Vancouver, Canadá (A reflection about grief with university students in Vancouver, Canada). Fundación IPA. https://fundacionipa.org/reflexion-rafa/

2017  El rol del humor en la relación terapéutica en Cuidados Paliativos (The role of humor in therapeutic relationships in palliative care). Fundación IPA. (http://fundacionipa.com.ar/el-rol-del-humor-en-la-relacion-terapeutica-en-cuidados-paliativos/)

2013  Why Not Prosecute Those Who Implemented Ethnocide? Georgia Straight, Nov. 26, 2013. Print and online versions (http://www.straight.com/news/537206/why-not-prosecute-those-who-implemented-ethnocide)

1. Sessional Lecturer Teaching Award. UBC – Department of Sociology. (2022)
2. Graduate Student Research Award. UBC. (2014)
3. Faculty of Arts Graduate Award. UBC. (2011/12/13)
4. “Bottom Billion” Fieldwork Fund. Liu Institute for Global Issues. UBC. (2011)
5. UBC Mobility Award. UBC. (2011)
6. Catherine Pouget (Palliative Care) Award “Honorable Mention” (2011)
7. Four-Year Fellowship. UBC. (2009/2012)
8. Faculty of Arts Graduate Award. Entrance Scholarship. UBC. (2008)
9. University of BC Graduate Fellowship. UBC. (2007/2008)

Ph.D. Co-Director

2020-Present.  “Historical and anthropological reconstruction of the Hospice movement in Argentina”, Escuela de Doctorado, UNSAM, Argentina (Thesis by Darío-Iván Radosta)

Sessional Faculty w/Cont. Status.