Suzanne Morrissey

From Our Strength is Suzanne Morrissey’s first documentary film. She is the lead interviewer and narrator of the film, which she co-wrote and co-directed with filmmaker Patricia Keith. The film documents changing childbirth practices among indigenous women in Ecuador’s southern Andes and is a realization of major aspects of Suzanne’s academic research.

Suzanne is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Studies and Director of Gender Studies at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. She concentrates her research in many fields, including Medical Anthropology, Complementary and Alternative Medicines, and Women’s Health, all of which find expression in the individual stories of the mothers, midwives, nurses, and doctors featured in the film.

In 2010, Suzanne was supported by a Fulbright Distinguished Scholars Grant to conduct research in Ontario, Canada, on the uses of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) by patients with multi-symptom chronic illnesses such as fibromyalgia. Currently, she is researching the U.S. portion of the project in Portland, Oregon.

Two related, long term goals of her work include recording peoples’ stories of illness and need for integrative medicine; and, working with area health providers to develop models for integration and to advocate for health-care policy change.