Ellen Foley

Assistant Professor of International Development and Social Change

Department of International Development, Community, and Environment
Clark University
950 Main St
Worcester, MA 01610

E-mail: efoley@clarku.edu
Tel: 508-421-3815

B.A., Kalamazoo College, 1994
M.A., Michigan State University, 1998
Ph.D., Michigan State University, 2002

Dr. Foley has been at Clark since 2006. Ellen Foley is a medical anthropologist who focuses on health policy, health sector reform, and gender and health issues in West Africa and among African immigrants and refugees in the United States. She is currently finishing a book-length manuscript that examines the gendered effects of neoliberal development policies and health sector reform in Senegal, with a focus on the micropolitics of family health in rural and urban communities.

Foley is also working on a new research project titled “Baraka and Biomedicine: Health at the Intersection of Diaspora, Faith and Science in Senegal.” This research examines how transnational African immigrant networks are becoming influential in shaping the health development agenda in their home regions. The first phase of this project involved pilot research at the Matlaboul Fawzaini hospital built in Tubaa, Senegal.

In 2008, Foley received $61,000 from the Central Massachusetts Health Foundation for an action research project called “Bridging Barriers: Meeting Youth Immigrant and Refugee Health Needs in Worcester, Ma.” She also received a second year of funding from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security on Action Research to Prevent and Reduce Youth and Gang Violence in Worcester, MA with Laurie Ross and Greg Paskach (CDP/MA ’08) as part of a cross disciplinary collaboration within the IDCE department.

For her continued work in West Africa, she published “Overlaps and Disconnects in Reproductive Health Care: Global Policies, National Programs, and the Micropolitics of Fertility and Contraceptive Use in Northern Senegal” in Medical Anthropology, 26 (4): 323-354. 2007. Foley presented “Gender crises and human rights in Senegal: rethinking feminist activism and social change” at the American Anthropological Association (November 2007). She’s also part of the aids2031 Social Drivers team at Clark.

Current Research and Teaching

Foley's work focuses on the macro and micro politics of health in West Africa. She recently spent a year studying the barriers African immigrant women face in Philadelphia in the areas of HIV education, prevention and testing. She has done extensive field work in Senegal, where she worked on issues of household health, reproductive care and fertility and health care reform.

Professor Foley taught previously in the anthropology department at Michigan State University and in the Health and Societies program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Selected Publications and Papers

Foley, Ellen E. “The anti-politics of health reform: household power relations and child health in rural Senegal” Anthropology and Medicine, in press.

Foley, Ellen E.  2008. “Neoliberal Reform and Health Dilemmas: Illness, Social Hierarchy, and Therapeutic Decision-Making in Senegal” Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 22(3): 257-273.

Foley, Ellen E.  2007. “Overlaps and Disconnects in Reproductive Health Care: Global Policies, National Programs, and the Micropolitics of Fertility and Contraceptive Use in Northern Senegal” Medical Anthropology, 26 (4): 323-354.

“Neoliberal Reform and Health Dilemmas: Illness, Social Hierarchy, and Therapeutic Decision-Making in Senegal” under review by Medical Anthropology Quarterly.

“Responsibilization versus structural violence: gender, power, and child health in rural Senegal” under review by Anthropology and Medicine.

"Overlaps and Disconnects in Reproductive Health Care: Global Policies, National Programs, and the Micropolitics of Fertility and Contraceptive Use in Northern Senegal" forthcoming in Medical Anthropology.

"HIV/AIDS and African Immigrant Women in Philadelphia: Structural and Cultural Barriers to Care" AIDS Care, 17 (8): 1030-1043. 2005.

"No Money, No Care: Women and Health Care Reform in Senegal", Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development, Vol. 30:1, 2001.