Professor Helen Vallianatos

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Professor Helen Vallianatos
University of Alberta

Helen Vallianatos is a professor of anthropology with research and teaching interests focused on food, gender, body, and health issues that emerge when people migrate to new locales. The majority of her research involves collaborative, interdisciplinary work in partnership with various community organizations. Her recent research has focused on migrant mothers’ well-being as well as examining migrant families’ navigation of new familial, community, and social contexts. Helen is the co-editor of The Migrant Maternal: “Birthing” New Lives Abroad (2016, Demeter Press), and a variety of articles in both social science and health venues.

Selected Publications

Vallianatos, H. 2021. ‘Since It’s a Pleasure to Save Somebody’s Life, I Do This’: Midwifery and Safe Motherhood Practices in Urban India. In C. Jullien & R. Jeffery (Eds.) Childbirth in South Asia: Old Challenges and New Paradoxes. Pp 121-143. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Vallianatos, H. 2021. Migration, Mothers, Meals: Immigrant mothers’ navigation of household food politics. In T.M. Cassidy & A. O. El-Tom (Eds.) Moving Meals and Migrant Mothers: Culinary Cultures, Diasporic Dishes and Familial Foodways. Pp. 205-221. Bradford, ON: Demeter Press.

Schultes, A. & Vallianatos, H. 2021. The migrant maternal: theory and practice. In A. O’Reilly (Ed.) Maternal Theory: Essential Readings, 2nd edition. Pp. 719-731. Bradford, ON: Demeter Press.

Richter, S., Yohani, S., Vallianatos, H., & Higginbottom, G. 2021. Health literacy as a determinant of healthy eating and active living in Canadian immigrant youth. Health Promotion International 36(2):406-416. DOI: 10.1093/heapro/daaa053

Yohani, S., Salami, B., Okeke-Ihejirika, P., Vallianatos, H., Alaazi, D., & Nsaliwa, C. 2020. “If you say you have mental health issues, then you are mad”: Perceptions of mental health in the parenting practices of African immigrants in Canada. Canadian Ethnic Studies 52(3):47-66. 10.1353/ces.2020.0016

Oleschuk, M. & Vallianatos, H. 2019. Boundary work and the body: Body talk among Arab Canadian immigrant women. Qualitative Sociology 42:587-614.

Vallianatos, H., Friese, K., Martinez Perez, J., Slessor, J., Thind, R., Dunn, J., Joober, R. Boksa, P., Lal, S., Malla, A., Iyer, S.N., & Shah, J.L. 2019. ACCESS Open Minds at the University of Alberta: Transforming student mental health services in a large Canadian post-secondary educational institution. Early Intervention in Psychiatry 13(Suppl. 1):56-64. DOI: 10.1111/EIP.12819

Faculty Page: https://apps.ualberta.ca/directory/person/hv