Associate Professor, Anthropology


Office: 541-737-3506

Waldo Hall

Waldo Hall 220

2250 SW Jefferson Way

2250 SW Jefferson Way
Corvallis, OR 97331
Major(s): 
Cultural Anthropology, Food Security
Education: 

PhD, Sociocultural Anthropology, New York University (2011)

MA, Sociocultural Anthropology, New York University (2006)

MA, Latin American Studies, Stanford University (2002)

 

 

Profile Field Tabs

At OSU
Affiliated with: 
Sch Lang, Culture & Soc
Headquarters: 
OSU Main Campus
Research/Career Interests: 

I am an anthropologist with expertise in food studies, medical anthropology, and the social study of science. For the past twenty years I have carried out ethnographic research on the fields of nutrition and public health in Guatemala, resulting in dozens of peer-reviewed publications, an edited volume, and two books. I am starting a new research project that explores cultural memory and nuclear history in South Dakota. 

I hold a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from New York University; a Masters in Latin American Studies from Stanford University; and undergraduate degrees in Human Biology and Anthropological Sciences from Stanford University. I was raised at the edge of wilderness on an island in Alaska-- an experience that has shaped my lifelong interest in urbanization, development, and settler colonialism. Before joining the faculty at Oregon State, I spent seven years at the University of Amsterdam. 

Research:

 
Publications

2024

BOOK

Yates-Doerr, Emily. Mal-Nutrition: Maternal Health Science and the Reproduction of Harm. University of California Press, 2024. Open Access.

BOOK CHAPTER

Kaul, Shivani and Emily Yates-Doerr. “Interdependence: Reworking Ontogeny through Tendrel Fishbones and Dirty Chickens.” In: The Handbook of DOHaD & Society: Past, present and future directions of biosocial collaboration, edited by M. Pentecost, J. Keaney, T. Moll, & Michael Penkler. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press pp. 267-278. Open Access. 

Thompson, Andie and Emily Yates-Doerr. “The Measure of a Mother: Accounting for Postpartum Hemorrhage in Global Health.” In The Handbook of Anthropology and Global Health. Eds, Ellen Foley and Tsitsi Masvawure. Routledge. pp. 89-103

“Ontogenesis as interdependence.” In: The Handbook of DOHaD & Society: Past, Present and Future Directions of Biosocial Collaboration, edited by M. Pentecost, J. Keaney, T. Moll, & Michael Penkler. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Co-Authored with Shivani Kaul. 

 

2023

Book

Yates-Doerr, Emily. The Ethnographic Case: Telling Stories, Shaping Knowledge. 2023. Mattering Press. Open Access.

Book Chapter

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “The Placenta: An Ethnographic Analysis of Nourishing Relations.” In Eating Beside Ourselves: Thresholds of Food and Bodies. Edited by Heather Paxson. Duke University Press. pp. 163-187. Open Access.

-“Interlude” Co-Authored with Harris Solomon. pp. 158-162. Open Access.

-“Interlude” Co-Authored with Deborah Heath. pp. 187-190. Open Access.

Journal Article

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Duo-Ethnographic Methods: A Feminist Take On Collaborative Research”. Field Methods 35 (2023): n. pag. Print. Field Methods.

Yates-Doerr, Emily, Lauren Carruth, Gideon Lasco, and Rosario Garcia Meza. “Global Health Interventions: The Military, The Magic Bullet, The Deterministic Model—and Intervention Otherwise. ” Annual Review of Anthropology. 52(1):187-204.

Miscellaneous Section

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Solicited Commentary” for the article 2023 Anthropology, Democracy, and Authoritarianism: Reflections from Brazil and the Philippines. Current Anthropology. 64(1).

Yates-Doerr, Emily and Alex Nading. 2023. “Introduction: Citational Practices in Medical Anthropology.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 37(3):177-181.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. Podcast Production of “Nutrire Members respond to the American Academy of Pediatrics 2023 Obesity Guidelines.” Nutrire CoLab. February 16, 2023.

Durocher, Myriam & Irena Knezevic. "Ice, Food Matters, Structures: An Edited Interview with Dr. Hi’ilei Hobart and Dr. Emily Yates-Doerr." Food, Culture & Society. DOI: 10.1080/15528014.2022.2159683

Durocher, Myriam and Irena Knezevic. 2023. Podcast Production: “Discussing Food Matters with Hi’ilei Hobart and Emily Yates-Doerr.”

 

2022

Journal Article

Valdez, Natali, Megan Carney, Maggie Dickinson, Alyshia Gálvez, Hanna Garth, Jessica Hardin, Abril Saldaña, and Emily Yates-Doerr. “Duoethnography as Transformative Praxis: Conversations about Nourishment and Coercion in the COVID-era Academy” Feminist Anthropology 3(1):92-105.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Bloodwork: Circulatory Disorders, Immunity, And The Scarring Of Systems”. Anthropology of Work Review 43 (2022): n. pag. Print. Anthropology Of Work Review.

Miscellaneous Section

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “On the Power and Nourishment of Multidisciplinary Inquiry: Remembering Adele H. Hite.” Somatosphere, June 30. Authored by the Nutrire CoLab.

Vasquez, Emily, Abril Saldaña Tejeda, Jennifer Brady, Alyshia Gálvez, and Emily Yates-Doerr. 2022. “The Politics and Practices of Representing Bodies in Capitalism: A Discussion about Public Health in Mexico and Beyond.” Critical Journal of Dietetics. 6(22):100-111.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “War on Hunger, War on Women: Anti-Abortion Politics in Nutrition Science and Policy.” Cultural Anthropology: Hot Spots. Series: “After Roe”

 

2021

Book Chapter

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Foreword”. In Managing Chronicity in Unequal States: Ethnographic Perspectives on Caring. Edited by Laura Montesi and Melania Calestani. University College, London Press. pp. xiii-xxi. Open Access.

Miscellaneous Section

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “The US Needs the Help of Climate Migrants.” In Sapiens. August 24.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Combating QAnon Conspiracies with Social Welfare Programs.” Ms. Magazine. January 29.

 

2020

Book Chapter

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Sustainability”. Lexicon For An Anthropocene Yet Unseen. 2020. Print. Lexicon For An Anthropocene Yet Unseen. Punctum Press. 

Journal Article

Cuj, Miguel, Lisa Grabinsky and Emily Yates-Doerr. 2020. “Cultures of Nutrition: Classification, Food Policy, and Health.” Medical Anthropology. 40(1):79-97. 

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Imperialist Irony.” Contribution to the Vital Topics collection, Chronic Disaster. American Anthropologist. 122(3):674-675.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Reworking the Social Determinants of Health: Responding to Material-Semiotic Indeterminacy in Public Health Interventions.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 34(3):378-397.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Antihero Care: On Fieldwork and Anthropology.” Anthropology and Humanism. 45(2):233-244.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Attending to Silence.” The ADVANCE Journal. 2(2):1-9.

Magazine Article

Shaw, Susan, Cari Maes, Andie Thompson, and Emily Yates-Doerr. “5 Myths about the Protests in Portland.” Ms Magazine. July 28. 

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Stay Home, Stay Healthy is Dangerous Language.” Ms. Magazine. April 3.

Yates-Doerr, Emily and Cari Maes. “Don’t Reopen the Economy Until it is Safe to Reopen Schools.” Ms. Magazine. Dec 3.

Miscellaneous Section

García-Meza, Rosario and Emily Yates-Doerr. “The Social Life of Metrics.” In the Somatosphere series “Histórias of Zika.” Co-authored with Rosario García-Meza. Spanish translation, “La vida social de las métricas.”

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Head Circumference.” In the Somatosphere series “Histórias of Zika.” Co-authored with Rosario García-Meza. Spanish translation, “Circunferencia de la cabeza”

Galvez, Alyshia, Megan Carney and Emily Yates-Doerr. “Introduction: Vital Topics Forum, Chronic Disaster: Reimagining Noncommunicable Chronic Disease.” American Anthropologist. 122(3):639-640.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Air-Pollution Hacks Cannot Address Political Failure.” The Oregonian. September 16.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “The Cruelty of War: Repairing COVID-19 Through Healing and Care.” In Medical Anthropology Quarterly Online, April 8. Spanish translation available.

Wolf-Meyer, Matther and Emily Yates-Doerr. “Reworking the Cognitive Bias—A Brainstorm.” Somatosphere.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Advocacy Letters.” Somatosphere.

Nutrire Co-Lab. “Anthropologists Respond to The Lancet EAT Commission.” BioNatura: Latin American Journal of Biotechnology and Life Sciences. 5(1):1023-1024. Spanish translation, “Antropólogas Responden a la Comisión Lancet EAT.”

Newspaper Article

Yates-Doerr, Emily and Joan Gross. “Racialized Inequality: Social Justice is the Vaccine We Need for Oregon’s Food System.” Eugene Weekly. July 16.

 

2019

Book Chapter

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Does Meat Come From Animals”. Naturenkulturen: Denkräume Und Werkzeuge Für Neue Politische . 2019. Print. Naturenkulturen: Denkräume Und Werkzeuge Für Neue Politische .

Journal Article

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “An Unfinished War.” Anthropology Now. 11(2):57-73.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Cortes de Carnes: Desenredando Natureza-Culturas Ocidentais.” Translation of “Cuts of Meat: Disentangling Western Nature-Cultures” into Portuguese for a special issue, with commentary, in Tecnologia e Sociedad.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Whose Global? Which Health? Unsettling Collaboration through Careful Equivocation.” American Anthropologist. 121(2):297-310.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Global Health”. Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology (2019): n. pag. Print. Cambridge Encyclopedia Of Anthropology.

Miscellaneous Section

Göttke, Florian, Deborah Heath, Rebeca Ibáñez Martín, Shivani Kaul, Rebecca Sakoun, Kim Sigmund, Andie Thompson and Emily Yates-Doerr. “The Ethnographic Fact: A Discussion of Ethics in Anthropological Fieldwork.” Somatosphere.

Yates-Doerr, Emily and Megan Carney. “For People Fleeing Central America, Hunger May Not Look Like Hunger.” Latino Rebels. April 23. 

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Storytelling.” Cultural Anthropology Online series, “Pathways.” With Spanish translation: “Contando historias.”

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Gun Violence Harms, Even If You’ve Never Been Shot.” Sapiens.

Carruth, Lauren, Sarah Chard, Heather A. Howard, Lenore Manderson, Emily Mendenhall, Emily Vasquez, and Emily Yates-Doerr. “Disaggregating Diabetes.” Medicine Anthropology Theory. 6(9):119-216.

 

2018

Journal Article

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Translational Competency: On the Role of Culture in Obesity Interventions.” Medicine Anthropology Theory. 5(4):106-117.

Miscellaneous Section

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Why Are So Many Guatemalans Migrating to the U.S.?”  Photo essay & Reflection. October 25. Sapiens.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “New Review Technologies: An Announcement & Invitation.” Somatosphere. (April 19).

Cunningham, Sarah, Kenny Maes, Drew Gerkey, Bryan Tilt and Emily Yates-Doerr. “Applying Anthropology.” Cultural Anthropology Online. 

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Thinking with Dementia.” Co-edited with Kristine Krause, Annelieke Driessen, and Jeannette Pols. Somatosphere.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “George, the Dog.” Somatosphere series, “Thinking with Dementia.”

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “The Ethnographic Case”. 2018: n. pag. Print.

 

2017

Journal Article

Yates-Doerr, Emily. 2017. “Where is the Local? Partial Biologies, Ethnographic Authorities.” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. 7(2):377-401.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. 2017. “Counting Bodies? On Future Engagements with Science Studies in Medical Anthropology.” Anthropology & Medicine, 24(2):142-158.

 

2016

Journal Article

Yates-Doerr, Emily and Megan Carney. 2016. “Demedicalizing Health: The Kitchen as a Site of Care.” Co-authored with Megan Carney. Medical Anthropology. 35(4):305-321.

Miscellaneous Section

García Maldonado, María, Rosario García Meza, and Emily Yates-Doerr. “Sustainability.” Co-authored with María García Maldonado and Rosario García Meza. Cultural Anthropology Online.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Fat used to be celebrated in Guatemala, now unhelpful obesity advice is causing weight anxiety.” The Conversation.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “A reply.” Somatosphere Book Forum: “The Weight of Obesity.”

 

2015

Book

Yates-Doerr, Emily. The Weight Of Obesity: Hunger And Global Health In Postwar Guatemala. University of California Press, 2015. Print.

Journal Article

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “The World in a Box?: Food Security, Edible Insects and ‘One World, One Health’ Collaboration.” Social Science & Medicine. 129(1):106-112.

Miscellaneous Section

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “No Relation.” Cultural Anthropology Online series, “Embodied Ecologies.”

Berg, UIla, Sanda Rozental and Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Passing.” In Theorizing the Contemporary, Cultural Anthropology. Translated to Spanish as “Caminos.”

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “SICK: The Deadly Logic of the Limited Good.” Medicine Anthropology Theory, 6(1): 132-150.

Journal Article

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Does Meat Come From Animals? A Multispecies Approach to Classification and Belonging in Highland Guatemala.” American Ethnologist. 25(2):309-323.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Intervals of Confidence: Uncertain Accounts of Hunger, Weight, and Global Health.” BioSocieties. 10(2):229-246.

Miscellaneous Section

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Alimentary Uncertainties: From Contested Evidence to Policy.” Co-edited with Emilia Sanabria. BioSocieties. 10(2):117-124.

Yates-Doerr, Emily and Jenna Grant. “The Open Question: Open Access in Medical Anthropology.” Medicine, Anthropology Theory. 2(1):75-92.

 

2014

Journal Article

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Engagement in Practice: Obesity Science and Health Translation in Guatemala.” Anthropology Now. 6(1):3-14.

Miscellaneous Section

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Engaged Anthropology”. 2014: n. pag. Print.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Care: Provocation.” Cultural Anthropology, Field Notes.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “The Form of the Otherwise.” Cultural Anthropology Online.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “The Scale.” Somatosphere series “Commonplaces: Itemizing the Technological Present.”

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Cessiam Bulletin, Editorial”. 2014: n. pag. Print.

 

2013

Book Chapter

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Complex Carbohydrates: On the Relevance of Ethnography in Nutrition Education.” In Contours of Eating: New Relations between Food and Bodies, eds. Emma-Jayne Abbots & Anna Lavis. Ashgate Publishing. pp. 271-288.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “The Mismeasure of Obesity.” In Reconstructing Obesity: The Meaning of Measures and the Measures of Meaning, eds. Meghan McCullough & Jessica Hardin. Berghahn Books. pp. 49-70. 

 

2012

Journal Article

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “The Weight of the Self: Care and Compassion in Guatemalan Dietary Choices.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 26(1):136-158.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “The Opacity of Reduction: Nutritional Black-Boxing and the Meanings of Nourishment.” Food, Culture and Society. 15(2):293-313.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Meeting the Demand for Meat.” Anthropology Today. 28(1):11-15.

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Cuts of Meat: Disentangling Western Nature-Cultures.” Co-authored with Annemarie Mol. Cambridge Anthropology. 30(2): 48-64.

 

2011

Book Chapter

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Bodily Betrayal: Love and Anger in the Time of Epigenetics.” In A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment, ed. Fran Mascia-Lees. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 292-306.

Journal Article

Mann, Anna, Annemarie Mol, Priya Satalkar, Amalinda Savirani, Masima Selim, Malini Sur and Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Mixing Method, Tasting Fingers: Notes on an Ethnographic Experiment.” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. 1(1):221-243.

Miscellaneous Section

Yates-Doerr, Emily. “Cessiam Bulletin, Editorial”. 2011: n. pag. Print.

 

2009

Miscellaneous Section

Yates-Doerr, Emily. "A Death In The Family”. 2009: n. pag. Anthropology Now. Print.