Susan Erikson

Assistant Professor

Biography: 

Dr. Erikson is a medical anthropologist who has worked in Africa, Europe, Central Asia, and North America.  During a first career in international development, she worked in hospitals, rural clinics and schools in Sierra Leone providing primary health and education services.  Dr. Erikson has worked for or with many US government departments and agencies, including the US Congress, US Departments of State and Agriculture, and the US Agency for International Development.  As an academic, Dr. Erikson combines her practical experience with a critical study of relations of power that make good health more likely.  Dr. Erikson is the founding director of Global Health Affairs at the Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. She joined Simon Fraser in 2007.

Research Interests: 

Global health in international affairs and women's reproductive health are Dr. Erikson's thematic areas of expertise.  She conducts ethnographic research on global health, women's reproductive health, relationships between knowledge practices and power structures, governmentality, and globalization.

Dr. Erikson's research has been funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the American Association of University Women (AAUW), the Institute for International Education (IIE), Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), and others.

Dr. Erikson is currently concluding a 10-year research project in Germany, and has just recently begun a research project in Sierra Leone.  In both research projects, her aim is to contribute not only primary ethnographic research data and analysis on the gendered effects of global health and international affairs agendas, but also to the theoretical and methodological approaches to global ethnography.

Teaching Interests: 

Cultivating global health leadership, global health in international affairs, global political economy of health, global reproductive health politics.

Publications and Activities