Travel for fieldwork during your master’s degree in International Community Health

The master’s program in International Community Health is research oriented. As a student on the program, you will spend one full semester doing fieldwork, either in Norway or abroad, where you will address various topics of community health, based on your own interests.

– This is more and more rare in master’s programs, especially in the field of global health, and makes the program especially attractive I think, Heidi Fjeld says.

She is a professor in medical anthropology at the Department of Community Medicine and Global Health at the University of Oslo. She is currently in Asia, doing fieldwork, and working on two research projects.

The Eatwell-project is following food from production to consumption

– Right now, I am doing fieldwork in a remote district in Bhutan for a project on food systems and health, Fjeld says.

The project Eatwell is a multidisciplinary project involving anthropologists, nutritionists, and microbiologists, on food systems in different parts of Bhutan. Fjeld is working on the anthropological part of the project. The long-term aim of Eatwell is to learn more about how food influences the health of the population.

– Usually, we study only the particular food items and its nutrients, but this project has a much broader approach. It also looks at what happens with food before it is eaten and after consumption, Fjeld explains.
 
– Anthropologists follow the food from production to consumption; looking at how it is produced, stored, shared, or sold, how it’s cooked , and eaten in different local communities, which have been identified with the aim of showing diversity. Nutritionists will then measure nutritional value of the food consumed, and in the final stage of the project we follow the food as it makes its way into the body, where microbiologists will map the microbiome in the stomach in thousand samples from the communities in the study, Fjeld continues. 

Fjeld is studying food and health systems in Bhutan

– I am currently living with a family of subsistence farmers in a rather remote village in Western Bhutan, learning about their farming and food cultures, how food forms and maintains social and ritual relations, and how agricultural and food practices are changing with recent access to markets, Fjeld explains.

The village got electricity in 2013 and road connection in 2016, leading to many rapid changes, such as increased connectivity, out migration due to educational and work possibilities, and also easy availability of Indian food products, leading to changing eating practices, such as rapidly replacing buckwheat with white rice.

– The farms here are totally organic. They use only their own manure made from cow dung, hay, and forest greens. Based on Buddhist principles they only keep animals for what they produce. They milk the cows and take eggs from chickens, but do not slaughter them for their meat, Fjeld says.

There is an ongoing vegetarian movement initiated by the King of Bhutan, including a recent prohibition of serving meat to guests during festivals and rituals, that the farmers here also comply with.

– Yet, healthy eating is not something the people here are particularly concerned with. It is one of those situations where the distinction between traditional and modern is blurred and maybe also irrelevant, she continues.

Fjeld will study antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic use in Nepal

After two and a half months in Bhutan, Fjeld will travel to Nepal for three months to do fieldwork there. She will be studying the impact of antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic use on human and animal health.

– I will study the circulation of, and access to, antibiotics in communities close to the Tibetan and Chinese borders, Fjeld says.

– The areas have a long history of trans-Himalayan trade, also of medicinal goods, and are today located between two of the leading producers of pharmaceutical products worldwide, China and India. Nepal is an interesting case when studying the formal and informal circulation of Asian antibiotics, she continues.

The fieldwork is part of the UiO-project From Asia to Africa: Antibiotic Trajectories across the Indian Ocean, which follows antibiotics from production in China and India, to circulation, regulation, and consumption of antibiotics in Tanzania.

– Both of these ongoing projects share the framework of more-than-human health, or One Health, in which human health is seen closely intertwined with animal and environmental health, Fjeld explains.

– Foundational environmental issues in the Eatwell-project is the use of pesticides, toxins, and fertilizers in food production, and how this influences healthy eating. In the FAR-project the spread of resistant bacteria in the environment, through soil, water and air, is essential for antimicrobial resistance and the framework for why it’s important to understand circulation and consumption of antibiotics, she continues.

The ICH program keeps the local communities in focus

The master’s program in International Community Health gives a broad introduction to global health, while keeping local communities in focus.

– I think this local focus produces interesting and relevant knowledge. The global health field can be full of big words and jargon, and often very far removed from actual lives, which I, as an anthropologist, find less exciting, Fjeld says.

The program has students from all around the world, from various disciplines.

– The student group is very diverse. This creates an amazing learning arena. Participation in classes also provide the students with skills in interdisciplinary work, which I believe will be an essential qualification to deal with many of the larger global challenges in the years to come, Fjeld explains.

Former ICH-students work in a variety of fields and positions

The International Community Health master’s program prepares the students for many different types of jobs, within research, health system building and managing, medical humanitarianism, community work, and more.

– Many of my former students have continued with a PhD in Norway or abroad. Others work in international organizations, such as the Red Cross or the World Food Programme, or with national service providers and outreach organizations, like the Church City Mission or at the Salvation Army Street Hospital in Oslo, Fjeld says.

– Others work in the Ministry of Health in their home country. There are many possibilities, of course depending on the students’ choice of topic and approach in their master’s thesis, she concludes.

Fjeld encourages students to do fieldwork inside and outside of Norway

Fjeld have primarily done fieldwork in Asia since she started her master’s degree in the mid-90s. 

– These fieldworks were life changing experiences for me in my youth that I still cherish. Learning new languages and engaging with people who lives that are different from the normative standard in Norway, is both interesting and rewarding, she says.

Through fieldwork we get to stay in the communities for longer periods of time, possibly also returning over the years. We live with families and get to know people by sharing their daily lives. Being there and observing events as they unfold, produce different and important insights about human lives and communities. These are concerns and challenges which are unavailable with other methods. Fieldwork also enables better research collaboration.

– My experience is that, if done in the right ways, fieldwork is also rewarding for the people we stay with and study. There are, however, also good reasons to do fieldwork in one’s own community, and we also encourage that at the ICH-program, Fjeld explains.

Fieldwork is about understanding connections and people’s perspectives and practices

Conducting fieldwork requires both academic and social skills and is a steep learning process for most students.

– Doing fieldwork teaches students to be collaborative, yet independent; to be systematic yet flexible; to be patient, yet determined; to be observant of details, yet analytical and see the broader patterns. It exposes students to lives in their fullest. Not to health or social issues only, but to the context in which these issues unfold, Fjeld says.

– Fieldwork is about connecting with people, whether they are farmers in Bhutan or policy makers in Geneva. It is about understanding their perspectives, motivations, and practices, and thinking analytically about how those are part larger social, biological, political, cultural and material worlds, she continues.

Fieldwork skills are useful in most careers, Fjeld thinks, especially those that involves analysis of complex social and cultural processes, as well as careers that require an engagement with communties of people.