Kathleen Rice
Assistant Professor
Kathleen (Kate) Rice holds the SSHRC-funded Tier II Canada Research Chair in the Medical Anthropology of Primary Care. Her theoretical and methodological expertise are in the areas of social theories of power and inequity, and ethnography. In all her work, Kate aims to expose the underlying discourses, ideologies, and categories that shape healthcare, as well as the relations of power that underpin them. Driven by a commitment to high-quality, equitable care for all, her research program aims to improve the health of marginalized populations in particular, especially those grappling with social and economic change. Kate's specific areas of topical focus include rural and remote health, gender, human rights, chronic pain, pregnancy and birth, and medical education. Her areas of geographic focus are Southern Africa, and urban and rural Canada.聽
In collaboration with a research team in South Africa, she is currently the Canadian PI on a CIHR and IDRC-funded project entitled "Ukuvula Isango: Women's Empowerment and Post-Pandemic Reconstruction in Rural South Africa." This project uses a "people's science" approach to address key issues related to the precarity of women in rural areas of South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic as a starting point for post COVID-19 rebuilding. She is Co-PI on SSHRC-funded project entitled "Engaging people with lived experience of chronic pain within the context of social inequity: a critical realist evaluation of patient engagement in Canada" () and, in collaboration with colleagues at the Maison Bleue in Montreal, she carrying an ethnographic investigation of cultural safety in urban perinatal care. Her first book, entitled聽Rights and Responsibilities: Gender, Personhood, and the Crisis of Meaning in Rural South Africa, is available here:聽
