Anthony Wright, PhD
Assistant Professor of Childhood Studies
Department of Childhood Studies
Rutgers University-Camden
329 Cooper Street – Room 205
Anthony Wright is a medical anthropologist whose work explores how young people in the United States and Mexico experience illness, violence, and injustice. He is interested in how political, economic, and moral conditions shape diverse forms of suffering, as well as how young people and their fellow community members attempt to endure and transform these circumstances. Anthony has conducted 18 months of ethnographic research with pediatric cancer patients and families in California. This work is the basis of his book, Faith, Care, and Cancer: The Struggle for Survival in the Children’s Cancer Ward (NYU Press, forthcoming). Beyond his research in pediatric settings, Anthony is also working on a multimodal, collaborative ethnographic project exploring Indigenous youth activism in Michoacán, México (with Jurhamutí José Velázquez Morales). This work centers on the experiences of Purépechan youth and their intergenerational collaborators, who, since 2011, have been engaged in a fight against the combined effects of state violence, organized crime, and environmental exploitation. Anthony’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the UC Berkeley Center for Race and Gender, and the UC Berkeley Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. He has published work in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, Medical Anthropology, The Journal of Urban Health, Global Studies of Childhood, and multiple edited volumes. In addition to his appointment in Childhood Studies, Anthony is also Director of the Digital Studies Center at Rutgers-Camden.
Education:
Ph.D. Joint Program in Medical Anthropology (2019) – University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco
B.A. in Anthropology (2010) – University of Texas at Austin
Research Interests:
Cultures of pediatric medicine; child and youth illness; youth activism; violence and injustice; digital youth cultures; United States and Mexico.
Courses being taught at Rutgers-Camden:
Childhood and Violence; Childhood and Pediatric Medicine; Digital Youth Cultures; Youth Activism and Art; Digital Research Methods; and Interpretive Methods
View Full CV Here
Publications
Books
Forthcoming Faith, Care, and Cancer: The Struggle for Survival in the Children’s Cancer Ward. New York University Press.
Refereed Journal Articles
2026
“Distance and Interruption: The Violence of Deportation among Families Enduring Childhood Cancer in California.” With Dayana Shariff. Medical Anthropology Quarterly. [Under Review, Revise & Resubmit]
2023
“‘Not Like This’: Embodying Blackness and Childhood Cancer in the United States.” Medical Anthropology 42(3): 236-249.
2021
“‘Where Your Voice Burns Like Fire’: Visual Art and Radio Broadcasting as Semiotic Practices of Intergenerational Political Socialization among the Purépecha of Cherán, México.” With Jurhamuti José Velázquez Morales. Global Studies of Childhood 11(2): 179-194.
2016 
“Protecting Urban Health and Safety: Balancing Care and Harm in the Era of Mass Incarceration.” With Nadia Gaber. Journal of Urban Health, 93 (Supplement 1): 68-77. Special issue on police brutality, Hannah L. Cooper and Mindy Fullilove (eds.)
2015 “Identifying Pious and Heretical Citizens in a Permanent Supported Housing Community.” Care Management Journals 16 (1): 30-40.
2012 “Social Defeat in Recovery-Oriented Supported Housing: Moral Experience, Stigma, and Ideological Resistance.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 37 (1): 660-678.
Peer-Reviewed Chapters
2025 “Towards a Praxiographic Approach to Patient-Reported Outcomes in the Context of Pediatric Cancer Treatment.” In Cancers pédiatriques et génomique: un changement majeur?, edited by Sylvain Besle, Solenne Carof, Sandrine de Montgolfier, and María Cristina Murano, 163-175. Paris: Éditions des Archives Contemporaines.
2024 “Methods for a Multimodal, Transnational, and Engaged Research Practice: Mapping Youth Activism across Space, Time, and Tactics.” With Maurice Rafael Magaña. In Handbook of Youth Activism, edited by Jerusha Conner, 107-122. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.
2018a “El sueño de la antropología aplicada: La etnografía del campesinado y la voluntad de mejorar.” In Pioneros de la antropología en Michoacán, Lorena Ojéda Dávila (ed.) Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo Press.
2018b “Más allá del progresismo y el romanticismo: La obra antropológica de Stanley Brandes en Tzintzuntzan.” In Pioneros de la antropología en Michoacán, Lorena Ojéda Dávila (ed.) Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo Press.
Book Reviews
2021 Review of Cartographies of Resistance: Hip-Hop, Punk, and Urban Autonomy in Mexico, by Maurice Rafael Magaña. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology. 26 (2): 356-357.
Online Publications
2020 “Datafied Care: Digital Health Technologies and Profitability in the US Health Care System.” Critical Care, Medical Anthropology Quarterly Blog. Election Year Series. http://medanthroquarterly.org/2020/07/16/datafied-care-digital-health-technologiesand-profitability-in-the-us-health-care-system/
2018 “Pediatric Cancer, Racial Formation, and the Existential Weight of Anti-Blackness.” Institute for the Study of Societal Issues Fellows Working Papers. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/86w5k7th
Fellowships
2018 Dissertation Completion Fellowship, UC Berkeley
2017 Center for Race and Gender Graduate Student Research Grant, UC Berkeley
2017 Institute for the Study of Societal Issues Graduate Fellows Program, UC Berkeley
2015 Berkeley Fellowship, UC Berkeley
2013 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
Conference Activity/Participation
Presented Papers
2025 Depicting the Spirit of el Levantamiento: The Politics of Public Art in Cherán, Mexico. 20th International Arts in Society Conference. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
2024 Entangled Powers and Relations: Children and Youth in Ethnographic Praxis. American Anthropological Association 122nd Annual Meeting. Tampa, FL. (Virtual participation).
2024 “Donde la voz comunitaria arde como fuego”: Los jóvenes y la semiótica del levantamiento de Cherán. IV Seminario Internacional: Cultura, Memoria, y Tradición en América Latina. (Invited presentation, with Jurhamuti José Velázquez Morales). Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo. Morelia, Mexico.
2023 The Ever-Present Child in the Pediatric Cancer Ward. American Anthropological Association 121st Annual Meeting. Toronto, ON.
2023 The Religious/Secular Dichotomy and the Problem of Pediatric Cancer (Invited presentation). Pediatric Research and Innovation: Ethical and Social Considerations. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.
2022 Challenging Hierarchies of Age and Ability: A Praxiographic Approach to the Study of Patient Voices in the Context of Pediatric Cancer (Invited presentation). Pediatric Cancers & Genomics: A Game Changer? Cross Perspectives Between Social Sciences, Medicine, and Civil Society. Université Claude Bernard Lyon I, France.
2021 Multimodal Ethnography as Method for Staying True to Political Engagements and Critical Epistemologies (Invited roundtable). American Anthropological Association 119th Annual Meeting. Baltimore, MD.
2019 Pediatric Communicability: Constructing the Role of Networked Technologies in the Context of Cancer Treatment. American Anthropological Association 118th Annual Meeting. Vancouver, BC.
2018 Oncological Timescapes: Pediatric Cancer and the Revision of Biographical Time. Maps, Fictions, Timelines: Institutional Times. American Anthropological Association 117th Annual Meeting, November 25, 2018.. San Jose, CA.
2017 Adolescent Cancer in the Era of Mass Incarceration. Lineages of (Dis)Inheritance, Legacies of Kinship. American Anthropological Association 116th Annual Meeting, December 3, 2017. Washington DC.
2016 La voluntad para saber y mejorar: Antropología aplicada, gobernanza y desarrollo internacional en Michoacán. Pioneros de la Antropología en Michoacán. IV Congreso Mexicano de Antropología Social y Etnología, October 2016, Queretaro, Mexico.
2015 The New Character Education: Rhetorics of Anti-Fixity. A More Perfect Child: Expert Visions of Children and Childhood. Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group Conference. March 2015, Long Beach, CA.
2013 Ethnographic Workshop: Narrating Perspectives: How We Ask, What We Write. Society for Psychological Anthropology Biennial Conference, April 2013, San Diego, CA.
Campus Talks
2020 Ethnographic Contamination: Thoughts on the Problem of Anthropologists as Vectors. Society and Pandemic Working Group. Rutgers University, Camden.
2018 Black Families, Cancer, and the Existential Weight of Racism. The Political Economy of Intervention: Education and Biomedicine in the Neoliberal Era. UC Berkeley Institute for the Study of Societal Issues Graduate Fellows Program. Thursday, April 26, 2018.
2015 Police Brutality and Mass Incarceration: A Crisis in Public Health. With Nadia Gaber. Radical Experiments in Clinical Medicine Working Group, UC Berkeley. September 15, 2015.
2010 Welcome to Pinewood: An Ethnographic Account of Poverty and Illness in Permanent Supported Housing. UT-Austin Dept. of Anthropology Honors Thesis Presentations. May 2010, Austin, TX.
2009 Poverty and Illness in Recovery-Oriented Supported Housing. UT- Austin Undergraduate Research Week Poster Session.
Teaching Experience
Rutgers University, Camden, Department of Childhood Studies/Digital Studies Program
Youth Activism & Art, Engaged Civic Learning, Undergraduate (Fall 2023)
Childhood and Violence, Undergraduate (Fall 2021)
Interpretative Methods, Graduate (Spring 2021, Spring 2023)
Childhood and Pediatric Medicine, Undergraduate (Fall 2020, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2025, Spring 2026)
Childhood and Violence, Graduate (Spring 2020, Spring 2024)
Digital Research Methods, Undergraduate (Fall 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024)
Digital Youth Cultures, Undergraduate (Fall 2019)
Community Involvement/Outreach
Sept. – Dec. 2023 Lead Organizer, Activist Art Clubs, LEAP Academy and Cooper’s Poynt School, Camden, NJ
2021 – 2025 Co-organizer, Johnson Park Music and Arts Festival, Camden, NJ
2015 – 2016 Co-organizer, Radical Experiments in Clinical Medicine, UC Berkeley
June – July 2014 Volunteer, Associación Mexicana de Ayuda a Niños con Cáncer, Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico
Nov. – Dec. 2010 Volunteer, Casa Hogar (Children’s Shelter) Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico
Oct. – Dec. 2010 Volunteer English Instructor Escuela Secundaria de Zirahuén, Michoacán, Mexico
Professional Memberships/Affiliations
American Anthropological Association, Member
Society for Medical Anthropology, Member
Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group, Member