Mark S. Dolson

Office: PAS 2017

Email: msdolson@uwaterloo.ca

Research Interests 

Medical anthropology; homelessness; addiction; neoliberalism and workfare programs; Indigenous issues; ethnographic methods and writing.

Background

Mark earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology (with a research focus on medical and urban anthropology) in 2012 from Western University; an MA in the Anthropology of Medicine from McGill University; and an Honours BA in Anthropology from Western University. Mark completed a SSHRC-funded Postdoctoral Fellowship in Social Anthropology (University of Cambridge) focusing on homelessness, addiction, political violence and social suffering in Reykjavik, Iceland through the Scott Polar Research Institute in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. Before completing his Ph.D., he worked as an applied anthropologist for the Department of Paediatrics at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University as well as at the Centre for Studies in Family Medicine, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry. While part of the Department of Paediatrics, he carried out an ethnographic research project which sought to understand the culture of medicine, power dynamics between medical residents and their teachers in the context of medical education at the Children’s Emergency Department at Victoria Hospital in London, Ontario. During Mark's time at the Centre for Studies in Family Medicine, he took part in developing research projects centered on youth Indigenous health issues in remote First Nations communities in Northern Ontario. Mark’s current research and teaching expertise are in ethnographic approaches to homelessness and mental illness (particularly trauma, addiction and their socio-political causes); as well as critical approaches to neoliberalism, workfare, moral regulation, and policy related to poverty reduction and housing/re-housing the homeless in both Canada and Iceland. Following his SSHRC-funded Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Cambridge, Mark is continuing research on an ethnographic approach to homeless and marginalized subjectivities in Reykjavik, Iceland. He is attempting to trace ethnographically the shifting contours of one informants’ experience with hoarding, her self-exile into homelessness and extreme existential suffering resulting from political violence and paternalistic attitudes towards the homeless. 

Teaching Awards

University of Waterloo: Arts Award for Excellence in Teaching (2022)

University of Waterloo: Undergraduate Student Association Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award (2021)

Western University: Social Science Award of Teaching Excellence  (2016)

Western University: Social Science Award of Teaching Excellence (2015)

Education

Honours BA in Anthropology  (Western University)

MA in Anthropology of Medicine  (McGill University)

PhD in Anthropology  (Western University)

Postdoctoral Fellowship (University of Cambridge)

Courses Taught

Anthropology:

• ANTH 100: Introduction to Anthropology
• ANTH 202: Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology
• ANTH 347: Medical Anthropology
• ANTH 389: Anthropology of Care
• ANTH 348: Anthropology of Tourism
• ANTH 400: Mental Health and Healing

The School of Public Health Sciences:

• HLTH 173/273: Introduction to Indigenous Health in Canada
• HLTH 260: Social Determinants of Health
• HLTH 344: Qualitative Methods for Health Research
• HLTH 373: Addiction and Poverty
• HLTH 432a/b: Honours Research Thesis 
• HLTH 448: Health and Social Suffering
• HLTH 472: Independent Reading Courses (Mental health and addiction)
• HLTH 473: Re-Imagining Care
• HLTH 652: Qualitative Methods and Analysis 

Arts First Initiative: 

• ARTS 140 (Information and Analysis): Homelessness and Addiction
• ARTS 130 (Inquiry and Communication): Indigenous Issues in Canada

Books

• *2024 - (in preparation) Dolson, M. S. Subjectivity, Homelessness and the Limits of the Politics of Help and Housing in Reykjavík, Iceland. To be submitted to Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 
• * 2023 (currently submitted) Dolson, M. S. Withstanding the Impress of Neoliberal Workfare Restructurings: On Street-Involved Youth, Tall-Tale Telling, and the Relational Ironies of Resistance. Submitted as Chapter in Ungovernable Life, Wendy Russel and Lucas Savino, eds. 
• 2023 - (in preparation) Dolson, M. S., Forchuk, C. and T. Wafa. An Ethnographic Examination of the Lived-Actualities of Choice and Decision-Making in Homeless and Street-Involved Youth: The Youth Matters in London Study. To be submitted to Canadian Journal of Nursing. 
• 2018 - Dolson, M.  S.  “The Best Laid Plans…” Of Qualitative Research: On Chance and Precarity in Doing Ethnographic Fieldwork.  Book chapter for The Craft of Qualitative Research.  Steven Kleinknecht, Lisa-Jo van den Scott and Carrie B Sanders (Editors).  Canadian Scholars Press.
• 2018 - Bannister, S, Dolson, M. S., Lingard, L., Keegan, D.  Not just trust:  Factors influencing opportunities for residents to conduct technical skills on real patients.  Medical Education 52(6): 1-15.
• 2015 - Dolson, M. S. By Sleight of Neoliberal Logics: Street Youth, Workfare and the Everyday Tactics of Survival in London, Ontario, Canada. City & Society 27(2): 116-135.
• 2014 - Dolson, M. S.  Precarity, Workfare, and the Social Contingency of Suffering: The Story of a Canadian Street-Youth. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry. Published Online first (October 8th, 2014 DOI 10.1007/s11013-014-9409-4) 39 (1): 134-161 (March, 2015)
• 2013 - Dolson, M.S. Reflections Through Reflexivity: Why my Collaborative Research project in arctic Labrador did not work.  Collaborative Anthropologies, vol. 6: 201-236.                    
• 2009 - Dolson, M. S. On Benjamin's Temporality of Crisis, Foucault's Subjugated Knowledges, and their Import in Theorising Revitalisation Movements: A Critical Theoretical Examination. Anthropological Notebooks 15(3): 43-64.
• 2005 - Dolson, M. S. The Role of Dialogue, Otherness and the Construction of  Insight in Psychosis: Toward a Socio-Dialogic Model.  Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 36 (1): 75-112.