Dr Megan Warin

Biography/ Background

Dr Megan Warin is a social anthropologist whose teaching and research interests coalesce around the gendering of health and illness, the embodiment of food and memory, public understanding of scientific paradigms of obesity, and social theories. In addition to Gender Studies and Anthropology, Megan has worked in and across a number of disciplines in Australian and UK universities, including psychiatry and public health, researching experiences of schizophrenia (with Dr Rod Lucas and Professor Robert Barrett), and cross-cultural attitudes (including Vietnamese and Cambodian) to health and health services in Adelaide, Australia. Her PhD work involved a phenomenological investigation of anorexia in multi-sited fieldwork settings of Vancouver, Edinburgh and Adelaide. Megan teaches in Gender, Work and Social Inquiry and is a member of the Lifecourse and Intergenerational Health (LIGHt) Research Group, where she is exploring gender and class differences in obesity (funded through NHMRC and ARC grants).  Megan collaborates with Dr Simone Dennis (Australian National University, Canberra) examining Persian women's experiences of migration and bodies through embroidery and food. In collaboration with a colleague from Durham University, UK (Dr Catherine Palmer) Megan established the National Anthropology and Public Health Course in Australia.

The Lifecourse and Intergenerational Health Research Group (part of the Robinson Institute), where Megan and colleagues explore gender, class and obesity, and public understandings of obesity science.

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/earlyorigins/research/LIGHT.html

Qualifications

Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (Durham University, UK) 2008

PhD Social Anthropology and Gender Studies (University of Adelaide, South Australia) 2002

BA First Class Honours, Anthropology, University of Adelaide 1993

BA (Flinders University of South Australia) 1992

Teaching Interests

• Gender, health and illness; theories of the body; social theory and research in practice; gendered spaces; anthropology of public health.
  

Research Interests

Cultural psychiatry (and anorexia); critical persectives on obesity; Barker's hypothesis and early origins of disease; gender and social class; Persian diaspora in Australia, migration and material cultures; phenomenology and sensory experiences; embodied memory.

Current PhD students

• Damian Creaser The effects of major cardiac events on masculinity and manhood
• Tara Bates Gender and mental health
• Jillian Schedneck Modernisation and gender in the United Arab Emirates
• Gabbie Zizzo Breast milk banking
• James Smith Masculinitiy and men's health seeking practices

Research Funding

2011 - 2014 Australia Research Council Linkage grant

Project title: An ethnographic study of obesity risk in a disadvantaged community

Chief Investigators: Dr Megan Warin, Assoc Prof Vivienne Moore, Assoc Prof Paul Ward, Dr Michelle Jones.

Industry partners: SA Health, Playford City Council

2011 - 2014 Australia Research Council Linkage grant

Project title: Dynamics of desire and denial: Why are people with eating disorders reluctant to engage with treatment services?

Chief Investigators: Dr Megan Warin, Professor Tracey Wade, Dr Peter Gilchrist

Industry partners: SA Mental Health, Flinders Medical Centre, ACEDA

2011 - 2012 Channel 7 Children's Research Foundation

Project title: Food stories: How children from socially disadvantaged areas engage with childhood obesity prevention programs.

Chief Investigators: Dr Megan Warin, Assoc Prof Vivienne Moore

2010 Fay Gale Centre Fellowship

2008 Enhancing the Student Learning Experience (Durham University, UK)

Project title: Social software: Developing an innovative e-learning community of practice at Durham

Chief Investigators, Megan Warin, Mike Cameron, Martin Edney (Learning technologies Team), Dr Steve Lyon and Jan Metcalfe (Anthropology, Durham University).

 

2007 - 2010 National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)

 

Project title: Early life influences on obesity and fat patterning in children: critical periods, environmental determinants, and socio-cultural contexts

 

Chief Investigators: Dr Vivienne Moore (Department of Public Health, University of Adelaide, Dr Michael Davies (Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Adelaide), Dr Megan Warin (LIGHt), Prof Jeffrey Robinson (Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Adelaide).

 

2006 - 2008 Premiers Science & Research Award

Project title: The Florey Adelaide Male Ageing Study: Promoting Health, Wellbeing and Utilisation of Health Services by Middle Aged and Older Men. 

Chief Investigators: Prof Gary Wittert (Lead CI), Prof Janet Hiller, Assoc Prof Anne Taylor, Dr Megan Warin (and et al). 

 

2004 - 2007 Florey Medical Research Grant

 

Project title: Florey Adelaide Male Ageing Study.

Chief Investigators: Prof Gary Wittert (Lead CI), Prof Villis Marshall, Prof Janet Hiller, Dr Megan Warin, Dr Anne Taylor (and et al).

Publications

Books

Warin, M (2010) Abject Relations: Everyday Worlds of Anorexia, Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology, Rutgers University Press, NJ

Book sections

Warin, M., Moore, V. & Davies, M. (2011) The Traffic in ‘Nature’ Maternal Bodies and Obesity. In Fatness and the Maternal Body: Women’s experiences of corporeality and the shaping of social policy. Unnithan-Kumar, M. & Tremane, S. (eds) New York.: Berghahn Books.

Warin, M. & Dennis, S. (2009) Telling silences: unspeakable trauma and the unremarkable practices of everyday life. In (Un)knowing Bodies. Sociological Review Monograph Series. Latimer, J. & Schillmeier, M. (eds) Blackwell: Oxford.

Layton, R & Warin, M (2009) Aboriginal Australia. In Barnard, A & J Spencer (eds) Encylopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology. Routledge: London.

Journal papers: Academic

Giles L, Davies M, Whitrow M, Warin M and V Moore (2011) Maternal depressive symptoms and childcare during toddlerhood relate to child behavior at age 5½ years. Paediatrics (accepted, in process).

Warin, M, V Moore, Zivkovic, T., Davies, M (2011) Telescoping the origins of obesity to women's bodies: How gender inequalities are being squeezed out of Barker's hypothesis. Annals of Human Biology, 38(4):453-60.

Broom, D and M Warin (2011) Gendered and class relations of obesity: Confusing findings, deficient explanations. Australian Feminist Studies 26(70).

Warin, M (2011) Foucault's Progeny: Jamie Oliver and the Art of Governing Obesity. Social Theory and Health 9: 24-40.

Zivkovic, T., Warin, M., Davies, M and V Moore (2010) In the name of the child: The gendered politics of childhood obesity. Journal of Sociology 46: 375-392.

Dennis, S & M Warin (2010) Honeyed tongues and hostile intimacy: Engaging trauma across migrant worlds Special issue Spaces of Intimacy, Emotion, Space and Society, 3(1).

Smith, J., Braunack-Mayer, A., Wittert, G. & Warin, M. 2008. "It's sort of like being a detective": Understanding how Australian men self-monitor their health prior to seeking help. BMC Health Services Research 8(56).

Warin, M., Moore, V., Davies, M. & Turner, K. 2008. Consuming Bodies: Mall walking and the possibilities of consumption. Health Sociology Review 17(2).

Smith, J., Braunack-Mayer, A., Wittert, G. & Warin, M. 2008. Qualities men value when communicating with GPs: Implications for primary care settings. Medical Journal of Australia

Beasley, C. & Warin, M. 2008. Guest editorial: Re-imaginging preventive health. Health Sociology Review: International Journal of Health Sociology: Policy, Promotion, Equity and Practice 17(2).

Warin, Megan., Turner, Karen., Moore, Vivienne. & Davies, Michael. 2007. Bodies, mothers and identities: rethinking obesity and the BMI. Sociology of Health and Illness Advance online publication. (Additional information) (View publication online)

Smith, James., Braunack-Mayer, Annette., Wittert, Gary. & Warin, Megan. 2007. 'I’ve been independent for so damn long' Independence, masculinity and aging in a help seeking context. Journal of Aging Studies Vol 21(4).

Martin, S., Haren, M., Taylor, A., Middleton, S., Wittert, G., Warin, M. (2007) Cohort Profile: The Florey Adelaide Male Ageing Study. International Journal of Epidemiology, 36(2):302-306.

McLoughlin, P. & Warin, M. 2007. Corrosive Places, Inhuman Spaces Mental Health in Australian Immigration Detention. Health and Place, 14(2): 254-264.

Dennis, S. & Warin, M. 2007. Domestic temporalities Sensual patterning in Persian migratory landscapes. International Journal of Phenomenology 7(2).

Warin, Megan. 2006. Reconfiguring Relatedness in Anorexia. Anthropology & Medicine 13(1): 41-54. (Additional information) (View publication online)

Warin, Megan & Dennis, Simone 2005. Threads of memory: Reproducing the cypress tree through sensual consumption. Journal of Intercultural Studies 26(1-2): 159-170. (Additional information) (View publication online)

Warin, Megan. 2005. Transformations of Intimacy and Sociality in Anorexia: Bedrooms in Public Institutions. Body & Society 11(3): 97-113. (Additional information) (View publication online)

Warin, Megan. 2004. Primitivising Anorexia: The Irresistible Spectacle of Not Eating. The Australian Journal of Anthropology 15(1): (95-104).

Warin, Megan. 2003. Miasmatic Calories and Saturating Fats: Fear of Contamination in Anorexia. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 27(1): 77-93. (Additional information) (View publication online)

Warin, Megan. 2003. Be-coming Clean: The Logic of Hygiene in Anorexia. SITES: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies 1(1): (109-132).

Warin, Megan. 2000. The Glass Cage: An ethnography of exposure in schizophrenia. . Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine (London) 4(1): (115-133.).

Warin, M., Baum, F., Kalucy, L., Murray, C. & Veale, B 2000. The power of place space and time in womens and community health centres. Social Science and Medicine 50: (1863-1875).

Book reviews

Warin, M. 2006. A Sociology of Food and Nutrition: The Social Appetite. Health Sociology Review: International Journal of Health Sociology: Policy, Promotion, Equity and Practice 15(2).

Warin, M. 2005. Feeding Anorexia: Gender and Power at a Treatment Center. The Australian Journal of Anthropology 1.

Entry last updated: Wednesday, 18 Jan 2012