GUEST POST: Danya Glabau
GUEST POST: Danya Glabau
This fall, Danya will be attending the Food Allergy Bloggers Conference in Las Vegas, NV, September 26-28. She is thrilled to attend this conference, where she’ll get to meet some of the biggest stars in the food allergy blogging community! Some of you may know her from her blog, Allergy and the City, and from Twitter (@allergyPhD) as that PhD student who is studying the “culture” of food allergies in the United States. For those who don’t (or for those who are wondering why she chose this topic), she wanted to provide a brief introduction to who she is and what she’ll be doing at the conference.
FABC: Please tell us a bit about who you are and your research.
Danya: I’ll wear many hats at the conference: I am a PhD student in an interdisciplinary social science field called Science and Technology Studies (STS) where I am training to be an anthropologist specializing in medical and scientific cultures; I am a writer of scholarly papers, an unfinished dissertation, and a blog about my ongoing research on allergies; and I am an allergy sufferer whose unfinished allergy diagnosis journey began in adulthood. For my dissertation research, I am talking to the people who live with allergies and the allergists who treat them to collect personal and professional stories about how allergy management works in the real world. I’m also attending conferences, visiting medical offices, and following scientific research on allergies to get an idea of popular strategies and medical best practices. Ultimately I want to know the how – what are the techniques people use, and how do they learn about them? – and the why – what societal values shape the options and choices available for allergy management? – behind these everyday strategies.
FABC: You also are a blogger, and allergy sufferer, so I expect this will be personal for you as well.
Danya: Blogs are, as you all know, a very important source of information about food allergy. Reading food allergy blogs has taught me a lot about how people manage their allergies. I’m psyched to get to know many of the bloggers that I read on a regular basis. At the Food Allergy Bloggers Conference, I’ll be attending lectures and panels to learn more about the people behind the words. I’ll also be striking up conversations with those of you who might be interested in sharing more details about your allergy journey with me. I’m excited to learn more about how personal experience with food allergies has inspired the wide variety of writing and advocacy work that I’m already familiar with – as well as the projects that I will find out about for the first time in Las Vegas!
So please, look for me at the conference! I would love to get to know you better. You can learn more about my project on my blog, Allergy and the City. Follow me on Twitter (@allergyPhD) for blog updates and cutting-edge research from social scientists about allergy and health care. And you can always DM me via Twitter or email me if you have any questions or want to chat before September!
