Sharon Abramowitz is a sociologist, anthropologist, and global health expert based in Boston, MA, USA with specializations in conflict, health, mental health, West Africa, gender, children, and disasters. She has experience providing written and oral expert reports in the USA and the United Kingdom on social, political, economic, and health issues.
Qualifications: B.A, M.A. (Sociology). Ph.D. (Anthropology). Postdoctoral work (Psychiatric Epidemiology).
SPECIFIC 'AREAS' OF STUDY/EXPERTISE:
Trauma-related mental illness, refoulement, forced military service, child labor, child soldiers, child trafficking, human trafficking, female genital cutting/mutilation (FGC/M), forced marriage, domestic violence, witchcraft/voodoo/juju, homosexuality/homophobia; citizenship, nationality; statelessness, children’s rights, medical access, medical/psychiatric care, throughout in sub-Saharan Africa.
COUNTRIES & 'INCOUNTRY' AREAS VISITED:
Most often to: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, others.
As a topic and area expert, the expert has contributed to over 150 written reports, presentations, consultations, advisory meetings, and media statements in the United States, Canada, Denmark, France, Liberia, Senegal, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The expert has conducted extensive research on matters pertaining to health sector capacity in low-income countries, conflict and post-conflict issues, medical humanitarianism, trauma-related mental health, gender violence, and other political, sociocultural, economic, and structural matters. Particular social groups of interest include children, women, and low-income and vulnerable populations.
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Abramowitz, SA. (2014). Searching for Normal in the Wake of the Liberian War. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Abramowitz, SA. and Catherine Panter-Brick, Eds. (2015) Medical Humanitarianism: Ethnographies of Practice. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Abramowitz, SA. (in research) Behind the War on Gender Violence: Tracking the Hidden Histories of Sex, Culture and Power in Liberia’s Past and Present.
Peer Reviewed Papers
Abramowitz, S. (2017) “Epidemics (Especially Ebola).” Annual Review of Anthropology (46) pp.421-445.
Abramowitz, SA, McKune SL, Fallah, M., Monger, J., Tehoungue, K., Omidian, PA. C. (2017) “The Opposite of Denial: Social Learning at the Onset of the Ebola Emergency in Liberia.” Health Communications.
Abramowitz, SA. (2016) “Humanitarian Morals and Money: Health Sector Financing and the Prelude to the Liberian Ebola Epidemic.” Critical African Studies vol. 8 (3) pp.319-334.
Abramowitz, SA., McLean, K. McKune SL, Fallah, M., Monger, J., Tehoungue, K., Omidian, PA. “General Morbidity and Health-Seeking Behaviors in a context of Ebola Mortality: Monrovia, Liberia in the West African Ebola Epidemic.” Global Public Health pp.1-17. Published online http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2016.1208262.
Abramowitz, SA., McKune SL, Bardosh, K., Fallah, M., Monger, J., Tehoungue, K., Omidian, PA. (2015) Community-Centered Responses to Ebola in Urban Liberia: The View from Below. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0003706. Published 9 April 2015.
Good, B., Delvecchio-Good, MJ, Abramowitz, S., A Kleinman, C Panter-Brick. “Medical Humanitarianism: Research Insights into a Changing Field of Practice.” Social Science & Medicine 2014 (120) 311-316. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.09.027.
Abramowitz, SA., Meredith Marten, and Catherine Panter-Brick. (2014) “Medical Humanitarianism: Anthropologists Speak Out on Policy and Practice.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly. doi: 10.1111/maq.12139.
Abramowitz, SA. and Mary Moran. (2012) “International Human Rights, Gender-Based Violence, and Discourses of Abuse in Post-Conflict Liberia: A Problem of ‘Culture?’” African Studies Review 55(2) p.119-46.
Abramowitz, SA. (2011) “Trauma in Liberia: The Tale of Open