Dr. Elisa (EJ) Sobo
Professor and Director of CAL Undergraduate Research
Office: AL-411 | Phone: (619) 594-6591 | Email: [email protected]
Curriculum Vitae
Dr. EJ Sobo is a sociocultural anthropologist specializing in health, illness, and medicine. A professor in the department of anthropology, Sobo is also Director for Undergraduate Research in the College of Arts and Letters and a Faculty Fellow in the Information Technology division, with a specialization in generative AI.
Dr. Sobo’s areas of expertise include medical/health cultures, health-related stigma and identity, risk perception, the citizen science of biomedical alternatives, and qualitative methods (including ethnographic and rapid assessment). Her current work concerns yogic sound baths. Recent past projects have focused on healthy schools, vaccination, parent activism related to treatment options for intractably ill children; conspiracy theories regarding COVID-19 and health more generally, and—growing out of her work for the AAA—land acknowledgments.
A longstanding member of the editorial boards of journals such as Anthropology and Medicine, American Anthropologist, and Medical Anthropology, Dr. Sobo is a prolific author herself (a link to her CV is above). Her work has been reported on in media such as the New York Times, LA Times, and New Yorker, and she has been featured on NPR (see ‘Media,’ below).
Outside of SDSU, Dr. Sobo has served as President of the Society for Medical Anthropology and as Section Convener for the American Anthropological Association (AAA). She also has co-chaired the Committee on Public Policy (CoPP) for the AAA, and she has served on the board of the AAA's Anthropology of Childhood and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG) as well as on the Medical Committee of the Royal Anthropological Association in the UK.
Dr. Sobo earned her Ph.D. at UCSD (1990) and received post-doctoral training in medical anthropology at Case Western Reserve University (1991-1993). She has been a faculty member at the University of Durham in the UK, New Mexico State University, and the University of Arizona. She has worked in clinical trials as well as in hospital settings (i.e., for Children’s Hospital San Diego and with the Veterans Health Administration). She also has done extensive consulting.
Dr. Sobo is keen to involve students in her research as a compliment to classroom teaching; her core courses include Medical Anthropology (508) and Anthropology of Childhood (537). Dr. Sobo also teaches The Dynamics of Biocultural Diversity (402), both online and for the Honors College.
Dr. Sobo with Tiyana Dorsey (May 2018). Dorsey was one of several undergraduates who worked on Sobo's Pediatric Cannabis (PedCan) Project thanks to funding from SDSU's Undergraduate Research Program.
Dr. Sobo and the Department of Anthropology’s (and CAL’s!) 2013 Outstanding Graduating Senior, Samuel Spevack, who has just completed a Ph.D. in cognitive science.
Dr. Sobo with the Department of Anthropology’s 2011 Outstanding Graduating Senior, Harrison White, who is now in law school.
Recent Interviews
- AI in the Classroom. Faculty Futures Lab (2023).
- Conspiracy Theories, social justice, and inequality. European Center for the Study of Culture & Inequality (2022).
- Land acknowledgments. First Voices Indigenous Radio / WKNY (2021).
- Vaccine uptake, KTVU / Fox News Voices for Change (2021).
- Vaccines, public health and personal choice. MPR (2019).
- Medical Anthropologist Explores 'Vaccine Hesitancy'. All Things Considered, NPR (2019).
Selected Commentaries/Op-Eds
- Land acknowledgments meant to honor Indigenous people too often do the opposite – erasing American Indians and sanitizing history instead (w/M. Lambert & V. Lambert). The Conversation (July 7, 2021)
- US Black and Latino communities often have low vaccination rates – but blaming vaccine hesitancy misses the mark, The Conversation (July 7, 2021).
- The reasons why someSan Diegans remain unvaccinated are complex. Here’s what we’ve learned. San Diego Union-Tribune (July 6 2021).
- What Does the American Dream Have to do With the COVID-19 Vaccine? Sapiens.org, (February 25, 2021).
- Routine, Back-to-School Vaccinations Double in Value During a Pandemic. Times of San Diego (August 12, 2020).
- Playing with Conspiracy Theories. Anthropology News (July 31, 2019).
- Cannabis for Children with Intractable Epilepsy: Bypassing Big Pharma. HufingtonPost (October 30 2017).
- Pink Hats, Red Caps: Mending a National Gap. HuffingtonPost (January 26, 2017).
- Language, Power, and Pot: Speaking of Cannabis as Medicine. Savage Minds (September 1, 2016).
- Beyond the vaccination rift: How does the human drive for social belonging affect parents’ vaccination decisions? Sapiens (February 26 2016).
- Standing up to Big Food's Organic End Run: Who Will, and Why? HuffingtonPost (September 21, 2012).
- What can Slow Schools Teach Us? San Diego Union Tribune (November 25, 2011).
Sound Healing
Over the past several years, more and more yoga retail spaces have begun offering sound baths events. In Fall 2022, Dr. Sobo initiated the ‘Therapeutic Bathing Study’ with the aim of characterizing the health-related needs yoga sound baths serve and how people understand them to work. The project will also investigate how they fit into the broader, and cross-culturally common, domain of salutogenic (health-promoting) bathing. Data were collected from providers and receivers here in San Diego from Spring until Fall 2023. Findings are being interpreted in the context of contemporary healthcare consumerism and against the backdrop provided by the wellness industry and by contemporary constructions of health-related scientific/clinical expertise.
Scholarly publications:
- Sobo, EJ (2023). Healing Vibrations. AnthropologyNews (September/October). 64(5):28-32, 49.
Lateral Initiatives: Generative AI, Land Acknowledgments
As part of her work in higher education, and as a function of her various leadership roles, Dr. Sobo has been drawn into several interventions relating to issues of concern within the academy, including the rise of easily available Artificial Intelligence apps and the discussion relating to Land Acknowledgements.
Scholarly publications:
- Sobo, Elisa (2023). Could ChatGPT Prompt a New Golden Age in Higher Education? Teaching and Learning Anthropology, 6(1).
- Sobo, EJ; Lambert, VL; Lambert, MC. (2023). “Performing the Past and the Present with an eye to the Future: How might we Optimize the Potential of Land Acknowledgment Rituals and help Ensure they Do No Harm?” In The Routledge Companion to the Anthropology of Performance, Editors: LM Griffith and D Syring. Routledge.
- See also: Sobo, EJ; Lambert, M.; Lambert, V. (2021). “Land acknowledgments meant to honor Indigenous people too often do the opposite –
erasing American Indians and sanitizing history instead,” The Conversation (October 7, 2021).
Pandemic Response Work
Dr. Sobo participated in several concerted efforts to address the various crises and fissures revealed, exacerbated, and fomented by the COVID-19 pandemic. These included the disastrous mainstreaming of alt-right conspiracy theories and the challenge of ensuring an equitable and effective COVID-19 vaccination rollout. To help meet that challenge, Sobo collaborated in a nationwide action research coalition, CommuniVax, which focused on community-based capacity building in support of vaccination in historically underserved Black and Brown communities—communities that endured the negative health and economic impacts of the pandemic at tragic and disproportionate rates.
Scholarly publications:
- Sobo, E.J.; Cervantes, G; Ceballos, D.A.; McDaniel-Davidson, C. (2022). Addressing Covid-19 Vaccination Equity for Hispanic/Latino Communities byAttending to Aguantarismo: A Californian US–Mexico Border Perspective. Social Science and Medicine. Vol 305: 115096.
- Sobo, EJ. (2021). Conspiracy theories in political-economic context: Lessons from parents with vaccine and other pharmaceutical concerns. Journal for Cultural Research. 25(1):51-68.
- Sobo , EJ, and Elżbieta Drążkiewicz (2021). “Rights, Responsibilities, and Revelations: Covid-19 Conspiracy Theories and the State.” In: Viral Loads - Anthropologies of urgency in the time of COVID-19, edited by L. Manderson, N.J. Burke, and A. Wahlberg. University College London Press, pp.67-88.
- Sobo, EJ. (2021). “Vaccination: Against my Religion?” In: Bloomsbury Religion in North America Editors: James Bielo, Willian S. Green, Anthony B. Pinn. Bloomsbury.
- Sobo, EJ ; Helen Lambert; Corliss D. Heath (2020). More Than a Teachable Moment: Black Lives Matter. Anthropology & Medicine. DOI: 10.1080/13648470.2020.1783054.
Pediatric Cannabis (PedCan) Project
The Pediatric Cannabis Project, which began well prior to legalization via Proposition 64, explores the experiences of parents using or interested in using cannabis (marijuana) to treat children with drug-refractory (pharmaceutically unresponsive) epilepsy. Given the plant’s overall illegality at the time of data collection, such parents were largely on their own when it came to learning about, procuring, dispensing, and monitoring treatments. This study asked: How do they do it? It also examined how parents’ lay or ‘citizen science’ efforts relate to formal healthcare practices and to authorized cannabis-and-epilepsy research (e.g., as conducted by pharmaceutical corporations). In addition to addressing key theoretical concerns this project aimed to generate practical suggestions for healthcare and social services workers that accurately reflect parents’ experiences and desires. Given the sea change in how our society views cannabis now, the next phase of the project focuses on iatrogenic or biomedically-induced ‘side effects’ as well as the healing vs. curative nature of cannabis medicine.
Scholarly publications:
- Sobo, EJ. (2021). Conspiracy theories in political-economic context: Lessons from parents with vaccine and other pharmaceutical concerns. Journal for Cultural Research. 25(1):51-68.
- Sobo, EJ. (In press). Cultural Conformity and Cannabis Care for the Iatrogenic and Idiosyncratic Complications of Intractable Pediatric Epilepsy. Anthropology & Medicine 28(2):205-22.
- Sobo, E. (2022.) “Each Child is Unique: The Responsible US Parent’s Take on Hospital Care Gone Wrong.” In The Work of Hospitals: Global Medicine, Local Cultures, Editors: William Olsen and Carolyn Sargent. Rutgers University Press.
- Sobo, EJ (2017). Parent use of cannabis for intractable pediatric epilepsy: Everyday empiricism and
the boundaries of scientific medicine. Social Science and Medicine. Vol 190, pp. 190-198. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.08.003.
Pediatric Vaccination Selectivity
In anthropology, participants often take the lead in setting the research agenda. Dr. Sobo’s vaccination work grew out of the keen interest in vaccination expressed in 2012 by parents participating in the Healthy Child Development Project (see below). In 2014 a community study was begun. Major findings include lessons on the negative connotations of the phrase ‘herd immunity’ given our individualistic culture, and the fact that parents who selectively delay or forgo particular vaccinations for their children often know more about vaccination than those who simply accept vaccination, often blindly, as part of the clinical routine. Although Dr. Sobo was glad to wrap this work up several years ago, the recent resurgence of measles has led to her re-involvement on various levels.
Scholarly publications:
- Sobo, EJ. (2021). Conspiracy theories in political-economic context: Lessons from parents with vaccine and other pharmaceutical concerns. Journal for Cultural Research. 25(1):51-68.
- Sobo, EJ. (2016). Theorizing (Vaccine) Refusal: Through the Looking Glass. Cultural Anthropology: 31(3):342-350.
- Brunson, E., and EJ Sobo. (2017). Framing Childhood Vaccination in the USA: Getting Past Polarization in the Public Discourse. Human Organization 76(1):38-47. DOI: 10.17730/0018-7259.76.1.38
- Sobo, EJ. (2016) What is herd immunity, and how does it relate to pediatric vaccination uptake? US parent perspectives. Social Science and Medicine. 165(2016):187-195.
- Sobo, EJ; Huhn, A; Sannwald, A; Thurman, L. (2016) Information curation among vaccine cautious parents: Web 2.0, Pinterest thinking, and pediatric vaccination choice. Medical Anthropology. 35(6): 529-546.
- Sobo, EJ. (2015). Social Cultivation of Vaccine Refusal and Delay among Waldorf (Steiner) School Parents. Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 29(3):381-399.
Salutogenic (Health Promoting) Schools
Dr. Sobo’s ethnographic study regarding how ethnomedical understandings about healthy child development affect educational strategies and standards, particularly in Waldorf (Steiner) school settings is in its final phase. The work, which bridges medical anthropology and the anthropology of education, explores how particular school systems produce particular health risks and outcomes as the ‘developmental pediatric philosophies’ that ground them are put into practice in the classroom, on the playground, and at home. As well, the research explores the relationship of particular versions of developmental pediatrics to the production of particular kinds of citizens.
Scholarly publications:
- Sobo, EJ. (2015). Salutogenic Education and the Lifescape Paradigm: Movement and Whole Child Health in a Waldorf (Steiner) School. Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 29(2):137–115.
- Sobo, EJ. (2014). Play’s relation to Health and Well Being in Preschool and Kindergarten: A Waldorf (Steiner) Education Perspective. International Journal of Play. 3(1)9-23.
- Sobo, EJ. (2013). High Physical Activity Levels in Waldorf/Steiner Education Reflect Alternative
Developmental Understandings. Education and Health. 3(1):26-30.
Some Earlier Projects
Please see Dr. Sobo’s CV, accessible at the top of this page, for a list of related publications.
- Healthcare’s New Priorities
- Selling Medical Travel
- Implementation Science and Evidence-Based Care in the Veterans Administration (VA) Healthcare System
- Mantram Repetition and Childbirth Outcomes
- Optimizing healthcare for Children with Special Health Care Needs
- Qualitative Methods in Health Services Research
- Cultural Competence in Health Care
- Children’s Nutrition
- Living with HIV/AIDS
- HIV/AIDS prevention and risk perception/denial
- Jamaican Health and Healing