Matthew Thomann Discusses His Experience as a Fulbright Scholar

Maryland Global recently held a Q&A session with Department of Anthropology Associate Professor Matthew Thomann to learn about his experience as a Fulbright Scholar.

Thomann traveled to Kenya in 2022 to the University of Nairobi to examine sexuality and the politics of health in sub-Saharan Africa and the United States.

1. What is your field of interest, and can you explain your Fulbright project?

I am a cultural and critical medical anthropologist. My research examines sexuality and the politics of health in sub-Saharan Africa and the United States, crossing subfields of medical anthropology, global health, and queer anthropology. Between January and August of 2022, with the support of a U.S. Fulbright Scholar award (African Regional Research Program), I conducted ethnographic research documenting the landscape of care available to sexual and gender minorities living with advanced cases of anogenital warts caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) in Nairobi, Kenya.

In the Kenyan context, the association between receptive anal sex and the clinical presentation of anal warts leads members of this community to avoid health facilities, fearing homophobic retaliation from health providers. This delayed clinical presentation, combined with high rates of undiagnosed and/or uncontrolled HIV infection, has resulted in a regionally localized pattern of severely advanced, often obstructive cases of HPV-related anal warts requiring surgical intervention.

My work highlights patient’s therapeutic trajectories–their narratives of treatment encounters, suffering, and the affective impact of this condition on their livelihoods, vital social networks, and forms of sexual intimacy. In addition to generating anthropological knowledge and developing an evidence base that community leaders can use to bolster their efforts to confront this emerging health crisis, this work responds to the global health alarm over emerging cancer epidemics in African contexts hardest hit by the HIV epidemic.