Abstract
We are pleased to announce that the Michael H. Agar Lively Science Award for 2021 is being presented to Dr. Annette Pedersen, University College Northern Jutland, Denmark, Dr. Helle Haslund, Aalborg University, Denmark, Dr. Tine Curtis, Aalborg University, Denmark and Dr. Mette Grønkjær, Aalborg University, Denmark for their article, Talk to Me, Not at Me: An Ethnographic Study on Health-Related Help- Seeking Behavior Among Socially Marginalized Danish Men, published in Qualitative Health Research, 2020, 30(4), 598-609, Doi 10.1177/1049732319868966.
(pictured from left to right: Tine Curtis, Helle Haslund, Mette Grønkjær, and Annette Pedersen)
Drs Pedersen, Haslund, Curtis, and Grønkjær explored factors that influence health-related help-seeking behavior among socially marginalized men in a large Danish municipality. The study included 200 hours of participant observation and 25 ethnographic interviews with men between 45 and 65 years of age, in their own homes and in public parks among their peers. The fieldwork was primarily carried out at two collections of public benches where the users were predominantly from the neighboring area. The results demonstrated the complex and interacting social- and health-related conditions, which affected the men’s health-related help-seeking behavior.
The Michael H. Agar Lively Science Award
Beginning in 2018, the Agar Lively Science Award has been given annually by Qualitative Health Research to the authors of the most innovative applied research article published the previous year. An awards committee consisting of QHR editorial board members David Morgan, Guendalina Graffigna, and Eleanor Holroyd selected this article from over 1400 articles published in QHR in 2020 as the one most representative of Agar’s work.
Michael H. Agar was a well-known applied anthropologist who served many years on the editorial board of Qualitative Health Research. His work ranged widely across anthropology, linguistics, qualitative methods, social theory, cognitive science, and in many applied social and health research domains. It was characterized by innovation and risk-taking, offering provocative critique, evocative writing, and creative solutions to real world problems through the power of social research. Michael Agar died in 2017. The full set of criteria for this award can be found here: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1049732317721699.
Congratulations to these authors for their brilliant article and many thanks to the committee for their diligent work. Mike would have been proud.