Pauline Herbst is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Auckland. Her research interests include medical anthropology, the anthropology of childhood, identity, and how the body intersects these discourses. She also has an interest in technology, visual anthropology and media.
Using a child-focused approach, Pauline’s PhD will explore if New Zealand children diagnosed with the genetic disorder Medium-Chain Acyl coA Dehydrogenase Deficiency (MCADD), subscribe to a somaticisation or molecular geneticisation of personhood as their identity develops and changes over childhood. It also aims to use multimedia to explore how they are shaping what Rose refers to as the new “ethics of life” through their narratives.
This research is affiliated to the RSNZ Marsden Troubling Choice. Exploring and explaining techniques of moral reasoning for people living at the intersection of reproductive technologies, genetics, and disability project led by Julie Park, Ruth Fitzgerald and Michael Legge.
Recent research assistantships include Transnational Pacific Health through the Lens of Tuberculosis (Prof. Julie Park and Assoc. Prof. Judith Littleton) and Breathing Politics: Accountability and Responsibility for Children’s Asthma (Assoc. Prof. Susanna Trnka). She has also worked for the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) in Grahamstown, South Africa on a range of projects, including the Youth Development Program and a consultancy for the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF).
Her MA dissertation explored how the body of the South-African Rasta child was contested post-apartheid and was used in the Constitutional Court of South Africa.
Pauline Herbst 