Grants per year
Personal profile
Research Interests
Professor Seligman is a medical and psychological anthropologist who focuses on transcultural psychiatry, or the study of mental health in cross-cultural perspective. Her research interests involve critical examination of the social and political-economic forces that affect the experience and distribution of mental and physical illness, with an emphasis on the physical processes and mechanisms through which such forces become embodied. Seligman is interested in the relationships of stress, social disadvantage, and cultural models of selfhood to outcomes such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dissociation, somatization, diabetes, and depression. She is also exploring current neurobiological research concerning these phenomena.
Her past research has explored the connection between mental health and religious participation in northeastern Brazil. Her book on this research was recently published.
Her current research focuses on mental and physical health disparities among Mexican Americans. This includes research on the links between diabetes and depressed affect among Mexican Americans, and in particular, the relationships among negative emotion, social relationships, and blood sugar. In addition, Seligman is working on a project investigating mental health and psychiatric treatment among Mexican American youth.
Education/Academic qualification
Anthropology, PhD, Emory University
… → 2004
Anthropology, MA, Emory University
… → 2001
Anthropology, BA, Skidmore College
… → 1995
Research interests
- Medical Anthropology
- Latin America
- Psychological Anthropology
- Cultural influences on mental health and healing
- Self and narrative
- Embodiment and mind-body interaction
- Psychophysiology neuroscience
- Cultural neuroscience
- Immigrant and refugee mental health
- Ritual
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Network
Recent external collaboration on country level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots.
Grants
Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Role Socioeconomic and Cultural Variation in Neurotrauma Recovery
3/1/18 → 2/28/21
Project: Research project
Cultures of Care: Exploring Inequalities in Mental Health Services Among Mexican American Youth
6/1/17 → 5/31/20
Project: Research project
A Senegalese Odyssey: migration and Mental Health in Catalonia, Spain
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
11/1/13 → 10/31/14
Project: Research project
Research Output
Cognition Beyond the Human: Cognitive Psychology and the New Animism
Ojalehto mays, B., Seligman, R. & Medin, D. L., Jan 1 2020, (Accepted/In press) In : Ethos.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Dealing with the unknown. Functional neurological disorder (FND) and the conversion of cultural meaning
Canna, M. & Seligman, R., Feb 2020, In : Social Science and Medicine. 246, 112725.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Mind, Body, Brain, and the Conditions of Meaning
Seligman, R., Sep 2018, In : Ethos. 46, 3, p. 397-417 21 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
3
Scopus
citations
“Bio-looping” and the psychophysiological in religious belief and practice: Mechanisms of embodiment in Candomblé trance and possession
Seligman, R. A., Jan 1 2017, The Palgrave Handbook of Biology and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 417-439 23 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
3
Scopus
citations
Locating Culture in the Brain and in the World: From Social Categories to an Ecology of Mind
Seligman, R., Choudhury, S. & Kirmayer, L. J., Jan 12 2016, The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Neuroscience (Oxford Library of Psychology). Li, S-C., Seligman, R., Turner, R. & Chiao, J. (eds.). 1st edition ed. Oxford University Press, p. 3-20Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter