Contact
E-MAIL: sethmholmes@berkeley.edu
Special Interests
Medical anthropology, transnational im/migration, environmental anthropology, racialization and racism, gender and queer studies, the naturalization and normalization of social and health inequalities, symbolic violence, subjectivation, Latin America, the United States, and Europe
Research
Seth M. Holmes is a cultural and medical anthropologist and physician whose work focuses broadly on social hierarchies, health inequalities, and the ways in which such asymmetries are naturalized, normalized, and resisted.
Profile
Seth M. Holmes is Chancellor's Professor in the UC Berkeley Division of Society and Environment, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. He is a faculty member in the Graduate Program in Medical Anthropology and affiliated with the Department of Anthropology and the School of Public Health. He is Co-Director (with Ian Whitmarsh) of the MD/PhD Track in Medical Anthropology coordinated between UCSF and UC Berkeley and Co-Chair (with Charles Briggs) of the Berkeley Center for Social Medicine.
A medical anthropologist and physician, Holmes works on social hierarchies, health inequities, and the ways in which such asymmetries are naturalized, normalized, and resisted in contexts of transnational im/migration, agro-food systems, and health care. He has received national and international awards from the fields of anthropology, sociology, geography, and documentary film, including the New Millennium Book Award, the Margaret Mead Award and the Textor Prize. In addition to scholarly publications, he has written for popular media such as The Guardian, The Huffington Post and Salon.com and spoken on multiple NPR, PRI, Pacifica Radio and Radio Bilingüe radio programs.
Books and Edited Volumes
Mendenhall, E., Holmes SM., & Migration and Health in Social Context Working Group (2021). "Migration and health in social context." BMJ Global Health, 6(Suppl 1), e005261.
Stonington S, Holmes SM, Hansen H, Greene J, Jenks A, Morse M, Wailoo K, Marmot M, Farmer P. “Case Studies in Social Medicine.” New England Journal of Medicine. 2018-2020.
Meierotto, L., Mares, T. & Holmes, SM. “Bienestar—the well-being of Latinx farmworkers in a time of change.” Agric Hum Values. 2020. 37(1).
*Castaneda H, *Holmes SM, *Kallius A, *MonterescuD. “Virtual Issue: Refugees and Im/migrants.” American Ethnologist. 2016. *Equal editorship, listed alphabetically.
Hansen H, Holmes SM, and Lindemann D, eds. “Special Issue: Ethnography of Health and Social Change.” Social Science & Medicine. 2013; Dec; 99.
Holmes, SM. Frutta Fresca, Corpi Spezzati: Migracioni, Razzismo e Braccianti Agricoli in America. Meltemi. Milan, Italy. In Press.
Holmes, SM. 2022. Frisches Früchte, Kapute Körper: Migration, Rassismus und Landarbeiter in Amerika. Transcript Verlag. Bielefeld, Germany.
Holmes, SM. 2019. Corpos Resistentes: Imigracão, Racismo e Trabalho Agrícola Nos EUA. Le Monde Diplomatique Edição Portuguesa, Outro Modo. Lisbon, Portugal.
Holmes, SM. 2016. Fruta Fresca, Cuerpos Marchitos: Trabajadores Agrícolas Migrantes en Estados Unidos y México. Editorial Abya Yala. Quito, Ecuador.
Holmes SM, Jenks A, and Stonington S, eds. "Anthropologies of Contemporary Clinical Training." Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry. 2011; 35(2).
Stonington S, Holmes SM. "Social Medicine in the Twenty-First Century." Public Library of Science Medicine. 2006; 3(20):e455.
Film
First Time Home, 2021, Dir Librado E, Librado Sanchez N, Ventura E, Ventura H., Prod. Holmes SM.
Rising Voices Award, Portland Film Festival, 2021; Spotlight Short Film Gold Award, 2022; Global Film Award, Best Documentary Honorary Mention, 2022; Best Youth Film Award, San Diego
Latino Film Festival, 2022; Ledo Matteoli Award, Humboldt International Film Festival, 2022.
Selected Articles and Chapters
Hart LK., & Holmes SM. (2022). “Visibility, Invisibility and Solidarity: Sandrine Musso’s Legacy on Migration, Health and Social Difference” Anthropologie et Santé. https://doi.org/10.4000/anthropologiesante.11658
Martinez C, Carruth L, Janeway H, Quesada J, Holmes SM. (2022). “How Should Clinicians Express Solidarity WIth Asylum Seekers at the US-Mexico Border?” AMA Journal of Ethics. 24(4):E275-282. doi: 10.1001/amajethics.2022.275.
Whitacre, R., Oni-Orisan, A., Gaber, N., Martinez, C., Buchbinder, L., Herd, D., & Holmes, S. M. (2021). “COVID-19 and the political geography of racialisation: Ethnographic cases in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Detroit.” Global public health, 1–15. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2021.190839
Holmes, S., Castañeda, E., Geeraert, J., Castañeda, H., Probst, U., Zeldes, N., Willen, S., Dibba, Y., Frankfurter, R., Lie, A., Askjer, J., & Fjeld, H. (2021). "Deservingness: Migration and health in social context." BMJ Global Health, 6, e005107. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2021-005107
Martinez, C., Talavera, C., Magaña Lopez, M., & Holmes, S. M. "Anthropology of inequality & precarity." In SAGE Handbook for Cultural Anthropology, edited by Lene Pedersen and Lisa Cliggett, 2021; pp. 447-465. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publishing.
Harvey M, Holmes SM, Neff J, Knight KR, et al. “Structural competency and global health education.” Global Public Health. 2020 Dec:1-22. DOI: 10.1080/17441692.2020.1864751.
Whitacre RP, Buchbinder LS, Holmes SM. “The Pandemic Present.” Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale. 2020. doi:10.1111/1469-8676.12829
Shamasunder S, Holmes SM, Goronga T, Carrasco H, Katz E, Frankfurter R, Keshavjee S. “COVID-19 reveals weak health systems by design: Why we must re-make global health in this historic moment.” Global Public Health. 2020. doi:10.1111/1469-8676.12829
Magaña Lopez M, Holmes SM. “Raids on Immigrant Communities During the Pandemic Threaten the Country’s Public Health.” American Journal of Public Health. 2020. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2020.305704.
Holmes SM. “Commodification and Resistance: Asylum for Sale and Alternative Futures.” Asylum for Sale: Profit and Protest in the Migration Industry. Siobhán McGuirk and AdriennePine, Eds. PM Press. 2020.
Holmes SM, Hansen H, Jenks A, Stonington S, Morse M, Greene J, Wailoo K, Marmot M, Farmer P. “Misdiagnosis, Mistreatment and Harm – When Medical Care Ignores Social Forces.” N Engl J Med. 2020. 382(1): 1083-1086.
Mason K, Willen S, Holmes SM, Herd D, Nichter M, Castañeda H, Hansen H. “How Do You Build a ‘Culture of Health’? A Critical Analysis of Challenges and Opportunities from Medical Anthropology.” Population Health Management. 2020. DOI: 10.1089/pop.2019.0179
Neff J, Holmes SM, Knight K, Harvey M, Lewis B, Strong S. “Structural Competency: Interprofessional Medical Education Responding to the Needs of Structurally Vulnerable Populations.” MedEdPortal. 2020. doi: 10.15766/mep_2374-8265.10888.
Meierotto, L., Mares, T. & Holmes, SM. “Introduction to the symposium: Bienestar—the well-being of Latinx farmworkers in a time of change” Agric Hum Values. 2020. 37(1):187-196.
Holmes, SM. “Migrant farmworker injury: temporality, statistical representation, eventfulness.” Agric Hum Values. 2020. 37(1): 237-247.
Vonk L, Holmes SM. “Working to end farmworker oppression while listening to farmworkers and focusing on root causes in context.” Dialectical Anthropology. 2019; 43 (4), 393-396.
Martinez C, Holmes SM. “Health and Social Stratification.” Oxford Bibliography of Anthropology. Ed. John Jackson. Oxfordbibliographies.com. 2019.
Carrasco H, Messac L, Holmes SM. “Misrecognition and Critical Consciousness — An 18-Month-Old Boy with Pneumonia and Chronic Malnutrition.” N Engl J Med. 2019. 380:2385-2389.
Holmes SM. “Marking ‘Preemptive Suspects’: Migration, Bodies, and Exclusion.” Latin American Perspectives. 2019; 45, no. 6 2018: 30–36.
Seymour CK, Griffin C, Holmes SM, Martinez, C. “Structural Differential — A 32-Year-Old Man with Persistent Wrist Pain.” N Engl J Med 2018; 379:2385-2388.
Stonington, S, Holmes SM, Hansen H, Greene J, Wailoo K, Roberts D, Marmot M, Farmer P. “Case Studies in Social Medicine: Using Social Theory to Approach Health and Medicine.” New England Journal of Medicine. 2018; 379:1958-1961.
Selim, N, Abdullah M, Al Loulou L, Holmes SM, Ibiss M.* “Coming Together in Refugee Work: Experiment and Collaboration in Berlin.” Anthropology in Action. 2018. No. 3; 34-44. *Equal authorship, listed in alphabetical order.
Neff J, Knight K, Satterwhite S, Nelson N, Matthews J, Holmes SM. "Teaching Structure: A Qualitative Evaluation of a Structural Competency Training for Resident Physicians.” Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2017; 32:430-433.
Holmes SM, Karlin J, Stonington S, Gottheil D. “The First National Survey of MD/PhDs in the Social Sciences and Humanities.” BMC Medical Education. 2017; https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-017-0896-1
Holmes SM, Castaneda H. “Representing the "European Refugee Crisis" in Germany and Beyond: Deservingness, Difference, Life and Death.” American Ethnologist.2016; 43(1):1-13.
Holmes SM, Green, J, Stonington S. “Locating Global Health in Social Medicine.”Global Public Health. 2014: 13:9(5):475-80.
Holmes SM. “Is It Worth Risking Your Life?: Ethnography, Risk and Death on the U.S.-Mexico Border.”Social Science & Medicine. 2013; 99: 153-161.
Hansen H, Holmes SM, and Lindemann D, eds. “Ethnography of Health for Social Change: Impact on Public Policy and Perception.”Social Science & Medicine. 2013; 99:116-8.
Martin E, Litchfield G, Parvez F, Lindemann D, Holmes SM, Hansen H. “Enhancing the Public Impact of Ethnography.”Social Science & Medicine. 2013; 99:205-8.
Holmes SM. "The Clinical Gaze in the Practice of Migrant Health: Mexican Migrants in the United States." Social Science & Medicine. 2012; 74(6) : 873-881.
Holmes SM. "Structural Vulnerability and Hierarchies of Ethnicity and Citizenship on the Farm." Medical Anthropology. 2011; 30(4):425-49.
Holmes SM. "Anthropology and Its Contact Zones." Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers. 2011; 100(1):5-7.
Holmes SM, Jenks AC, Stonington S. "Clinical subjectivation: anthropologies of contemporary biomedical training." Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry. 2011; 35(2):105-12.
Holmes SM and Ponte M. En-case-ing the Patient: Disciplining Uncertainty in Medical Student Patient Presentations.Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry. 2011; 35(2):163-82.
Holmes SM. "Oaxacans Like to Work Bent Over: The Naturalization of Social Suffering Among Berry Farm Workers." International Migration. 2007; 45(3):39-68.
Holmes SM. "Parce qu'ils sont plus pres sol: L'invisibilisation de la souffrance sociale des cueilleurs de baies." Actes de Recherche en Sciences Sociales. 2006; 165(2):28-51.
Holmes SM. "An Ethnographic Study of the Social Context of Migrant Health in the United States." Public Library of Science Medicine. 2006; 3(10):e448.
Holtz T, Holmes SM, Stonington S, Eisenberg L. "Health is Still Social: Contemporary Examples in the Age of the Genome." Public Library of Science Medicine. 2006; 3(10):e419.
Stonington S, Holmes SM. "Social Medicine in the Twenty-First Century." Public Library of Science Medicine. 2006; 3(20):e455.