This book explores the experiences of Muslims in the United States as they interact with the health care system during serious illness and end-of-life care. It shifts "actively dying" from a medical phrase used to describe patients who are expected to pass away soon or who exhibit signs of impending death, to a theoretical framework to analyze how end-of-life care, particularly within a hospital, shapes the ways that patients, families, and providers understand Islam and think of themselves as Muslim. Using the dying body as the main object of analysis, the volume shows that religious identities of Muslim patients, loved ones, and caregivers are not only created when living, but also through the physical process of dying and through death. Based on ethnographic and qualitative research carried out mainly in the Washington, D.C. region, this volume will be of interest to scholars in anthropology, sociology, public health, gerontology, and religious studies.

This collection brings together recent innovative work in applied and practicing anthropology. Organised around the theme of unexpectedness, it examines some of the novel spaces, topics, and methods that anthropologists are involved with. The volume emphasises non-traditional settings and demonstrates the important role of anthropology in addressing some of the pressing issues facing society today. The contributors offer detailed ethnographic examples from their own research and work that give students valuable insight and advice. Drawn mainly from the United States, the case studies illustrate the diverse arenas in which anthropologists operate, from law and finance to education and health care. Simultaneous consideration is given to practical applications, theoretical reflections, and professional experiences.

Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Rabat, Morocco, this ethnography analyzes the relationship between neoliberal development policies, women's reproductive practices, and popular understandings of Islam. In the 1990s, Morocco shifted its attention from economic to human development, as economic reforms in the preceding decades ultimately did not address social issues such as access to healthcare and education and poverty. Development programs like the National Initiative for Human Development seek to create modern citizens who are responsible, self-sustaining, and will make choices that better their well being. Hughes Rinker considers the implications that the reorientation from primarily economic to social development has on reproductive healthcare. Drawing on observations in health clinics; interviews with patients, medical staff, and at government and development agencies; and a document analysis, she demonstrates how women appropriate the medical practices and spaces of intervention aimed at creating modern citizens to form new religious identities, novel ideas of motherhood, and interpretations of neoliberal citizenship based on Islamic beliefs. Women's interpretations of Islam are not incompatible with the state's agenda for modernization, but rather serve as rationale for women to accept modern reproductive practices, such as contraception and pregnancy tests. However, even though female patients appropriate medical practices, they reinscribe development tropes that suggest they participate in modernization through their reproductive bodies and mothering instead of their productive labor. Hughes Rinker complicates neoliberalism as she shows it is unproductive to have a set conceptualization of neoliberal citizens, and more productive to examine the practices and discourses that create such citizens.

Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Rabat, Morocco, this ethnography analyzes the relationship between neoliberal development policies, women's reproductive practices, and popular understandings of Islam. In the 1990s, Morocco shifted its attention from economic to human development, as economic reforms in the preceding decades ultimately did not address social issues such as access to healthcare and education and poverty. Development programs like the National Initiative for Human Development seek to create modern citizens who are responsible, self-sustaining, and will make choices that better their well being. Hughes Rinker considers the implications that the reorientation from primarily economic to social development has on reproductive healthcare. Drawing on observations in health clinics; interviews with patients, medical staff, and at government and development agencies; and a document analysis, she demonstrates how women appropriate the medical practices and spaces of intervention aimed at creating modern citizens to form new religious identities, novel ideas of motherhood, and interpretations of neoliberal citizenship based on Islamic beliefs. Women's interpretations of Islam are not incompatible with the state's agenda for modernization, but rather serve as rationale for women to accept modern reproductive practices, such as contraception and pregnancy tests. However, even though female patients appropriate medical practices, they reinscribe development tropes that suggest they participate in modernization through their reproductive bodies and mothering instead of their productive labor. Hughes Rinker complicates neoliberalism as she shows it is unproductive to have a set conceptualization of neoliberal citizens, and more productive to examine the practices and discourses that create such citizens.

This book explores the experiences of Muslims in the United States as they interact with the health care system during serious illness and end-of-life care. It shifts "actively dying" from a medical phrase used to describe patients who are expected to pass away soon or who exhibit signs of impending death, to a theoretical framework to analyze how end-of-life care, particularly within a hospital, shapes the ways that patients, families, and providers understand Islam and think of themselves as Muslim. Using the dying body as the main object of analysis, the volume shows that religious identities of Muslim patients, loved ones, and caregivers are not only created when living, but also through the physical process of dying and through death. Based on ethnographic and qualitative research carried out mainly in the Washington, D.C. region, this volume will be of interest to scholars in anthropology, sociology, public health, gerontology, and religious studies.

This collection brings together recent innovative work in applied and practicing anthropology. Organised around the theme of unexpectedness, it examines some of the novel spaces, topics, and methods that anthropologists are involved with. The volume emphasises non-traditional settings and demonstrates the important role of anthropology in addressing some of the pressing issues facing society today. The contributors offer detailed ethnographic examples from their own research and work that give students valuable insight and advice. Drawn mainly from the United States, the case studies illustrate the diverse arenas in which anthropologists operate, from law and finance to education and health care. Simultaneous consideration is given to practical applications, theoretical reflections, and professional experiences.