Marjorie Muecke | University of Pennsylvania (original) (raw)

Papers by Marjorie Muecke

University of California Press eBooks, Dec 31, 1995

This 99-item bibliography gathers the widely dispersed nursing literature on refugees, including ... more This 99-item bibliography gathers the widely dispersed nursing literature on refugees, including unpublished master's degree theses and conference proceedings. Nurse researchers, more than researchers in other health care fields, have undertaken exploratory studies to document and interpret the health beliefs and health care practices of various groups of refugees. The bibliography is arranged according to the following refugee groups: (1) Afghan; (2) Arab; (3) Cuban and Haitian; (4) El Salvadoran; (5) Ethiopian; (6) Indochinese and general Southeast Asian, including Cambodian, Vietnamese Chinese, Fmong and Mien, Lao, and Vietnamese; (7) Iranian; (8) Polish; and (9) Tibetan. In each section, annotated citations to empirical studies, which represent the cutting edge of nursing interpretation of the refugee phenomena and are the least accessible, precede unannotated citations to practice-focused publications appearing in books or journals. All publications cited are in English. (FHW)

PubMed, Sep 1, 1996

It is the norm worldwide to provide care without regard to gender. The author, however, believes ... more It is the norm worldwide to provide care without regard to gender. The author, however, believes that men and women experience health care differently according to gender. Therefore unless the quality of health care for women is viewed from a gender perspective, it has little value and is inadequately known. Providers will likely overestimate the quality of care which women receive, and the need for a gender analysis of health care will remain unrecognized. The author describes how the adoption of a gender perspective has improved the quality of health care for women in different countries and in various venues of caregiving. She calls for a comprehensive approach to redress the situation, a direct approach involving health care researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in communication with the women to whom the services are directed.

Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health, Jan 2, 2005

Making decisions about whether to keep or terminate a pregnancy is an emotionally laden process f... more Making decisions about whether to keep or terminate a pregnancy is an emotionally laden process for any woman. The purpose of this study was to explore gender-based power relationships and cultural influences on reproductive decision making during pregnancy among 4 HIV-concordant couples in Taiwan. Feminist ethnography was used to explore how reproductive decisions were made during pregnancy. The study findings showed that the process of a couple's decision making about their desired outcome of pregnancy can be categorized as occurring in 3 stages: shaping the meaning of the pregnancy, encountering medical systems, and structuring decisions. These Taiwanese couples interpreted the meaning of their pregnancy as a "kindly" reminder from God, to make them aware of the HIV status, and having a child as a way for them to demonstrate filial piety. A couple's perception of substantial support from senior family members and from health care providers was crucial to the decision to continue the pregnancy to term. The Confucian value of filial piety drove the couples' reproductive decisions during pregnancy.

American Anthropologist, Sep 1, 1990

Issues in Mental Health Nursing, Oct 1, 2018

This study investigates what needs to be considered in our current health services to appropriate... more This study investigates what needs to be considered in our current health services to appropriately respond to abused Korean immigrant women. Using a community-based participatory approach, this qualitative interpretive description analyzed counseling documents and semi-structured interviews. Data analyses suggested that intimate partner violence (IPV) screening for ethnic minority women in health care settings can be improved by informing patients about the role of health care providers in addressing IPV, establishing rapport before IPV screening, assuring confidentiality is maintained, respecting Korean immigrant women's unique perspectives and response toward IPV, providing translation services, and collaborating with ethnic minority women's community organizations.

Social Science & Medicine, 1989

Nursing was the first education-based occupational field for women in Thailand. In the brief span... more Nursing was the first education-based occupational field for women in Thailand. In the brief span of 90 years since its beginning in hospital bedside care, it has become a professional field that has one of the greatest concentrations of women with doctoral degrees in the nation (n = 23). The academic evolution of nursing was instigated by the decisive contributions of two rich and powerful interests, the monarchy and private U.S.A.-based foundations. A cadre of doctorally prepared nurses has emerged. They, like members of other professions in Thailand, are predominantly from the urban privileged sector of society. The majority of today's nurses have followed a different course starting from petty bourgeoisie origins in towns and moving laterally through provincial bureaucratic channels. To date, lack of basic education has denied the poor and minority ethnic groups from the hill areas access to nursing. We describe the development of the nursing profession in three phases: the beginning of nurse training, 1896-1926; the creation of a small elite of nurses, 1926-1956; and the development of academic nursing, 1956 to the present. The future depends upon how the current polarization between the minority elite of university-prepared nurses and the majority lower middle class nurses proceeds. Since each group is governed and educated by separate government Ministries, and since women do not have access to higher government positions, nursing may have little control over its own development unless its new leaders take new leadership. One strategy is to recruit men into university nursing.

Journal of Nursing Scholarship, Mar 1, 2005

Aids Care-psychological and Socio-medical Aspects of Aids/hiv, 2006

The aim of this study was to analyze the dynamics of ideology, power and language in the dominant... more The aim of this study was to analyze the dynamics of ideology, power and language in the dominant discourses about childbearing by couples with HIV that were expressed by AIDS care professionals in Taiwan. Critical discourse analysis of the interview texts with 11 AIDS care professionals identified three prevailing discourses on childbearing by couples with HIV/AIDS: pro-children, conditional pro-choice and pro-rights. The pro-children and conditional pro-choice were the predominant discourses. The two discourses both medicalized childbearing among couples with HIV/AIDS by identifying medical authorities as the proper persons to decide which reproductive choices people with HIV/AIDS should make under what conditions. Even though the pro-rights discourse embodied an ideology of individualism, empowerment and autonomy, it was weak and relatively rare in the other two discourses.

PubMed, Dec 1, 1983

Healing is the alleviation of sickness, which includes both medically defined problems of pathoph... more Healing is the alleviation of sickness, which includes both medically defined problems of pathophysiology (disease) and personal definitions of not being well (illness). Refugees from Southeast Asia now have a special need for healing because their health problems are changing from those of concern to public health, which are well documented and for which there are known effective treatments, to those that are primarily a personal concern and that are difficult to diagnose and treat effectively because of their chronic nature and their cultural and emotional components. The finding among refugees of physical complaints for which there is no identifiable medical cause is explained by cultural tendencies in Southeast Asia that promote focusing on somatic symptomatology, and by a delayed somatic response to refugee trauma. To prevent escalation of medical intervention, physicians need to be sensitive to Southeast Asians' attitudes toward health and their expectations and apprehensions regarding Western medicine.

The study reports on the meaning of pain found among a sample of 102 inpatients and outpatients a... more The study reports on the meaning of pain found among a sample of 102 inpatients and outpatients and through clinical experience with a Mideast Study of Immigrants' Health Adjustment. The subjects experienced high levels of anxiety both in anticipating and in undergoing painful procedures, and tended to react oy seeking immediate relief through vocal and expressive behaviors. There is a discussion of implications for nursing care.

Anthropology News, Feb 1, 1996

Public Health Nursing, May 1, 2001

As a program officer for The Ford Foundation in reproduc-support to private family planning progr... more As a program officer for The Ford Foundation in reproduc-support to private family planning programs overseas that were in any way involved in abortion.) His purpose, he tive health in the 1990s, I met researchers, policymakers and nongovernmental organizations in over 20 countries. said, was to assure that taxpayer money is not used to ''pay for abortions or advocate or actively promote abortion I saw that despite even legal restrictions or religious beliefs, family planning was most accessible by the rich and least either here or abroad'' (Population Action International, 2001). Perhaps, so new in office, he didn't know that accessible by the poor. Because of their wealth and protected social status, upper class women have access to the U.S. law has prohibited using taxpayer funds abroad for performing or promoting abortion since 1973, and his best health care and so are more able to enjoy motherhood by choice. Lower class women are not so privileged. memorandum will not change this. Similarly, use of U.S. funds for biomedical research and for lobbying on abortion Women living in the most precarious conditions are most likely not to have access to women's health care or family was prohibited in 1981 and there have never been any reports of violations of these prohibitions (Population Ac-planning, and therefore to become pregnant when they are not ready for it. Without access to the safety, empathy, and tion International, 2000). privacy of high cost care, poor women are more likely to But in 1999, the U.S. Republican Congress voted to seek abortion and to take high-risk measures to induce it reenact the gag rule policy through a 1-year appropriations and therefore to have septic outcomes. act tied to a Democrat-supported initiative that enabled the United States to settle its long-term debt to the United Exceptions to this scenario became more clear as I observed the processes of preparing for and following up Nations. In consequence, some 430 foreign organizations in more than 50 countries have agreed to stop performing international conferences that provided venues for women to meet, share experiences, and mobilize to voice their abortions or discussing abortion laws in order to qualify for family planning funds from the U.S. Agency for Inter-needs to policymakers. The biggest conferences were the United Nation's International Conference on Population national Development (USAID). Curiously, the global gag rule does allow U.S. funds to support government family and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo, Egypt, in 1994, and the Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW) planning clinics in countries where abortion is legal and subsidized by the government such as Costa Rica, Egypt, held in Beijing in 1995. The momentum of the participating governments' call for women's reproductive rights resulted Jordan, Russia, and South Africa (Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc, 1999); the rule, however, withholds in international follow-up meetings in 1999 and 2000, respectively. I was riveted by the determination of women funds from private family planning organizations in those same countries. In 2000, Congress agreed to abolish the from even the poorest of countries to secure their right to sexual and reproductive health. As defined by the ICPD global gag rule. Now President Bush has reinstated it by one of his very first executive orders. and the FWCW, this includes their right to decide if and when to have sexual relations and to become pregnant, What the gag rule does is deny U.S. taxpayer funding and women's and men's right to have access to quality to any private family planning organization abroad that family planning education and services. speaks out about abortion law reform or whose program includes abortion counseling, referrals, or services. The Knowing this, I took President Bush's reinstatement of the Reagan-era ''Mexico City policy'' known as ''the denial applies even if the organization uses non-U.S. funds for those purposes, and even if it is simply exercising free global gag rule'' on his first full day in office as a blow to the reproductive health of lower class women in developing speech in a country where the practice of abortion is legal. There are thus two prongs to the gag rule fork. One prong countries. (It is called the Mexico City policy because it was in Mexico City at the 1984 international population prohibits the U.S. funding of any private organization abroad that provides abortion services even if it uses its conference that the United States announced it would end Anthropological Perspective, Trivandrum, India. reduces sexually transmitted diseases including HIV, which United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). (1996). The progress can lead to death, infertility, or disability. of nations: Women. Revised estimates [On-line]. Available: Women's demand for family planning, however, is unhttp://www.unicef.org/pon96/woestima.html. met because the funding falls far short of need. As a result, United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women. (2000). 40 to 50 million women a year resort to abortion (Interna-Briefing note: Beijing ‫5ם‬ process and beyond [On-line].

Culture, Health & Sexuality, May 1, 2004

The three papers on gender and sexuality among lowland Thai women in this issue of Culture Health... more The three papers on gender and sexuality among lowland Thai women in this issue of Culture Health & Sexuality represent the aim of a larger group of Thai researchers to contest stereotypes of female sexuality that dominate the English language literature on gender and sexuality in Thailand. With the support of The Ford Foundation the larger group was first convened in the year 2000 by the Chulalongkorn University Social Science Research Institute (CUSSRI) in Bangkok. Anthropologists Amara Pongsapich the Institute Director and I invited Thai researchers known to be studying gender and sexuality issues among lowland Thai women to participate in a series of authors’ workshops to review each other’s work and prepare it for submission for publication in English. The initial aims of the group were to contest the dominant international discourse (both in media and research) that addresses Thai women and sexuality solely in terms of sex work to address women’s sexuality in the complexity of its situatedness in different places of lowland Thai society and to bring voices of Thai researchers into the international discourses on Thai women and sexuality. (excerpt)

Studies in Family Planning, Nov 1, 1987

Western Journal of Nursing Research, Dec 1, 1992

Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, Nov 1, 1970

During a year's experience with graduate students of child psychiatric nursing, videotape recordi... more During a year's experience with graduate students of child psychiatric nursing, videotape recordings of stildent therapistpatient sessions emerged as an effective "do-it-yourself" tool for clinical supervision.

Women & Health, Aug 13, 2001

Because persons with AIDS in Thailand usually are cared for by their families, and because govern... more Because persons with AIDS in Thailand usually are cared for by their families, and because government AIDS policy relies upon this assistance for the care of the country's sick, the research reported here addressed the questions: Who are the home and community care givers for PWA? What kind of care do they give? And, What is the impact of care giving on the care giver(s)? Informants were drawn in 1998-99 from a long-term birth cohort study of a non-clinical urban population in the country's province of highest AIDS mortality, ChiangMai. The study was part of a larger, exploratory ethnographic study of the interplay among health, reproduction and development among persons born in 1964 and their mothers that I began in 1973. Findings include that among care-givers, parents, overwhelmingly mothers, and wives considered it their place, duty and moral benefit to care for adult children or husbands sick with AIDS.