HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

A distinguished committee of anthropologists convened by the School of American Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, N.M., recently selected “Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor” — the 2003 work by Harvard Medical School (HMS) Professor Paul Farmer — as the winner of the 2006 J.I. Staley Prize for outstanding book in anthropology. Passionate in his claim that health care is a fundamental human right, Farmer, who is the Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Social Medicine at HMS, draws upon 20 years of frontline clinical experience among the poorest populations in Haiti, Peru, Boston, and Russia to shake readers from complacency and mobilize them to action. Farmer identifies poverty and illness as a spiral of human degradation that can only be arrested by concerted acts of individual and social conscience. As a medical doctor, Farmer is able to comprehend human suffering; as an anthropologist, he brings its social and economic roots urgently alive for the reader.

First awarded in 1988, the annual J.I. Staley Prize recognizes innovative books that go beyond traditional frontiers and dominant schools of thought in anthropology and add new dimensions to our understanding of the human species. It is the largest cash prize in the field. Each year, SAR convenes an anonymous committee of specialists representing the four subfields of anthropology (sociocultural, biological, linguistic, and archaeological) to scrutinize and select a winner from among the nominated books.

In making the announcement, SAR President James F. Brooks commented, “Dr. Farmer’s work in social medicine has drawn acclaim for many years. His contributions to human well-being as an anthropologist are less well known. With this award Farmer’s extraordinary ability to link medicine and social science in the quest for human dignity receive full acknowledgment.”