Steven J. Folmar
Steven Folmar (Ph.D., Case Western
Reserve), is an applied cultural anthropologist whose main interests
are in Medical Anthropology, Religion and Development. He has conducted
fieldwork in Bangladesh and India, and has ongoing research interests
in Nepal, where he also conducts the Summer Program in Nepal. He is
involved with the Center for International Studies, assisting with
issues of cultural competency at Wake Forest. Finally, Dr. Folmar works
closely with NGOs and committees in Nepal to help Dalits pursue equal
social status and relevant development goals.
Current Research:
For the past decade, I have increasingly focused on issues of
identity and social justice for the Dalits, or "untouchable" castes of
Nepal. To that end, I have concentrated on the micro-political
processes of resistance to entrenched power in Nepal through tactics of
identity politics and the politics of anonymity. In their struggle for
social equality, Dalits have grappled with how to posit a group
identity that can gain enough favor in the national debate on society
in Nepal to advance their social and economic goals. I have argued that
social groups have increasingly been treated as belonging to one model
of group formation, the ethnic model. This model, I believe does not
fit the situation of Dalits well and need a new model of understanding
their own status.
Recently, I have turned to understanding how Dalits and others
conceive of caste status - what is the essential definition of caste?
How is membership to the group conceived? One argument that has gained
credence recently is that people can construe group membership in one
of two ways, in terms of a kind of essence, like blood or DNA or as a
culturally constructed relationship based on historical and social
processes. I have just begun work on a project that will attempt to
relate a person's definition of group (Dalit; high caste or ethnic)
with mental health, such as depression and anxiety. The central idea of
this question is that a person's cognitive model of society can either
exacerbate or ameliorate mental health problems for males and females.
This project will also relate the role of formal education in this
dynamic - does education promote social equality or uphold hierarchy?
How? Does it affect how people see their group membership? The specific
questions are exciting and nearly endless. Some long-held "truisms"
about caste and caste society are up for re-examination in this
project.
Questions of immediate concern:
- What do people say are the specifics of group membership?
Is it endowed by the creator, situated in the blood, or constructed by
society? Is it a complex of these and other things?
- Is group membership perceived to be fixed or can it change?
- Can we identify a "cultural" (group held) model of society?
Does individual difference with this cultural model affect mental
health?
- Is it the model itself that is related to mental health?
Any commentary on these or other issues is welcome at
folmarsj@wfu.edu.
Courses Taught:
- "Medical Anthropology"
- "Peoples and Cultures of South Asia"
- "Myth, Ritual and Symbolism"
- "Ethnographic Methods"
Current Publications:
2010 (anticipated) Folmar S.
Problems of Identity: Hill Dalits and Nepal's Nationalist
Project. In
Nationalism and
Ethnic Conflict: Mobilization of National, Linguistic,
Caste, Religious and Regional Identities in Nepal, M
Lawoti and S
Hangen, eds. Routledge (accepted for publication).
2009 Folmar S.
"You are the Clever One": a semantic contest in a
transient host/tourist community in Nepal. Southeastern
Review of Asian
Studies: 30:81-96.
2009 Folmar S., G Palmes. Cross-cultural psychiatry in the field:
collaborating with anthropology. Journal of the American Academy of
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 48(9)873-876.
2009 Folmar S. Identity
politics among Dalits in Nepal. Himalaya: 27:41-53.
2008 Folmar S. The
Sirubari village tourism project and local development. In Public
Policy and Local Development: Opportunities and Constraints, PK
Pradhan, D Wastl-Walter and S Folmar, eds. International Geographical
Union, Commission on Geography and Public Policy, Kathmandu, pp
241-259.
Contact:
Postal Mail:
Steven Folmar
Anthropology Department
PO Box 7807
Winston-Salem, NC 27109
Phone: 336.758.6065
Email: folmarsj@wfu.edu