Medical Anthropology
103,889 Followers
Recent papers in Medical Anthropology
This article examines incarceration as a chronic condition with social, biological, and psychological elements. We do so through the lens of “institutionalization,” a concept that emerged during interviews conducted with 26 people... more
After beginning his historical work in Switzerland in the 1950s and then continuing it in the United States at the Menninger Foundation, Henri Ellenberger (1905–1993) became the leading historian of " dynamic psychiatry ". This expression... more
This article highlights the importance of sexuality in assisted conception cycles through a method of inquiry that focuses on the biomedical professionals of the clinics studied, as well as the protocols they offer. Gamete donations and... more
This article examines how 'safety case' experts working on Finland’s nuclear waste repository project at Olkiluoto summoned, conjured, or channeled memories of Seppo—a deceased colleague whose ‘specter,’ as some put it, still ‘haunts’... more
Patient Citizens, Immigrant Mothers:
Mexican Women, Public Prenatal Care,
and the Birth-Weight Paradox. Alyshia
Gálvez, New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 2011. 211 pp.
Nicole S. Berry
Simon Fraser University
Mexican Women, Public Prenatal Care,
and the Birth-Weight Paradox. Alyshia
Gálvez, New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 2011. 211 pp.
Nicole S. Berry
Simon Fraser University
In this article, I examine the clinical practices engaged in by U.S. homebirth midwives and their clients from the beginning of pregnancy through to the immediate postpartum period, deconstructing them for their symbolic and ritual... more
Mexican cuisine has emerged as a paradox of globalization. Food enthusiasts throughout the world celebrate the humble taco at the same time that Mexicans are eating fewer tortillas and more processed food. Today Mexico is experiencing an... more
VITA Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment With photographs by Torben Eskerod Updated Blurb (2013) Zones of social abandonment are emerging everywhere in Brazil’s big cities—places like Vita, where the unwanted, the mentally ill, the... more
Monica H. Green, “Bodies, Gender, Health, Disease: Recent Work on Medieval Women’s Medicine,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 3rd series, vol. 2 (2005), 1-46. Abstract: This long essay review summarizes work in the field... more
Following the neoliberal restructuration of the Turkish welfare and banking systems in the 2000s, many veterans of Turkey’s Kurdish war faced debt enforcement due to failed payments for prosthetic limbs. Veterans responded to debt... more
Anthropologists and epidemiologists have been working for decades in the public health sector, but the relationship between these two 'communities' has not always been very good. Epidemiologists concentrate on quantitative data which is... more
What shape does ethical reasoning assume in the face of potentially contradictory commitments? Drawing on fieldwork in a private clinic in Chennai, the capital of the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, I examine how patients, their... more
"Pathologies of Power uses harrowing stories of illness, of life—and death—in extreme situations to interrogate our understanding of human rights. Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist with twenty years of experience studying... more
This paper investigates, in an anthropological key, the different connotations, valences and functions assumed in the human societies by the patient and the healer, omnipresent poles of the couple upon which every medical practice is... more
It is sometimes argued that the non-therapeutic, non-consensual alteration of children’s genitals should be discussed in two separate ethical discourses: one for girls (in which such alterations should be termed ‘female genital... more
Rödlach, A. (2010). Popular Images of the AIDS Epidemic. Contemporary Wood Sculptures from Southern Zimbabwe. African Arts 43(2):54-67.
The subject of the article comprises rituals of therapic offering recorded in the historical sources of the 16th–18th centuries and their structural elements, abundant in Lithuanian healing practices and concepts of the 19th–21st... more
Some people with dementia are transformed by the disease, to the point that family members may describe them as a “different person.” These transformations may be negative or positive. What factors affect the judgements of ordinary people... more
For more than 25 years, we have been looking for biomathematical laws controlling and structuring DNA, genes, proteins, chromosomes and genomes [1,2]. In 1997 we discovered a simple numerical law based solely on atomic masses, unifying... more
Consolidated around the middle of the 1960's in western anthropological research, medical anthropology or the anthropology of health, extremely young in specialized Romanian research, measures its growth on a tight field, where... more
Culture, traditional practices, and social norms of different societies have been found to have great impact on healthcare systems and people understanding of health and illness. This paper discusses how the Dagomba of Ghana theorizes... more
Introduction to See You On The Other Side podcast, episode 133, 28 February 2017 (interview by Mike Huberty and Allison Jornlin, Madison, Wisconsin). Online at... more
The use of 'traditional' medicine, or a combination of biomedical treatment and 'traditional' medicine, is a common phenomenon all over Indonesia. In today’s Indonesian healthcare system 'traditional' and alternative medicine coexist with... more
Ethanopharmacological relevance: The process of formation or appearance of a urinary stone anywhere in the renal tract is known as urolithiasis. It is a longstanding health problem, known to exist since early age of civilization. Records... more
A medical anthropological observation of the current gap in the Australian Indigenous Health Care system; Nguiu a small mining town that is located on Bathurst Island in the Northern Territory, there resides a dual occupancy of white... more
This paper proposes that established research techniques can be developed in new directions by becoming attentive to the ways in which novel epistemological and ontological frameworks can shape the production of research knowledges.... more
The purpose of this article is to describe the subjective experience of the diagnosis of Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and the cultural meanings that shape this experience. Based on interviews and discussion groups... more
In a Case Study in Social Medicine, a man presents to a mobile clinic in Maine with pain in his right wrist. Recognizing that he has a repetitive motion injury from raking blueberries, a physician ventures out into the field to analyze... more