In a world filled with more people who are overweight than underweight, public health and medical perspectives paint obesity as a catastrophic epidemic that threatens to overwhelm health systems and
Surviving HIV/AIDS in the Inner City How Resourceful Latinas Beat the Odds Sabrina Marie Chase Surviving HIV/AIDS in the Inner City How Resourceful Latinas Beat the Odds Sabrina Marie Chase Surviving
Surviving HIV/AIDS in the Inner City explores the survival strategies of poor, HIV-positive Puerto Rican women by asking four key questions: Given their limited resources, how did they manage an illne
The phenomenon of transnational adoption is changing in the age of globalization and biotechnology. In Legitimating Life, Sonja van Wichelen boldly describes how contemporary justifications of cross-b
"For anyone wanting to obtain a better sense of the range and diversity of historical and contemporary ethnographic research on drugs, this fine book will clearly be the one to consult."–Geoffrey Hun
Sleep Paralysis explores a distinctive form of nocturnal fright: "night-mare," or incubus. In its original meaning a night-mare was the nocturnal visit of an evil being that threatened to press the li
AIDS activists are often romanticized as extremely noble and selfless. However, the relationships among HIV support group members highlighted in Landscapes of Activism are hardly utopian or ideal. At
Embodying Culture is an ethnographically grounded exploration of pregnancy in two different cultures—Japan and Israel—both of which medicalize pregnancy. Tsipy Ivry focuses on "low-risk" or "normal" p
Incorporating investigative journalism and drawing on interviews with participants and leaders, Sandy Smith-Nonini examines the contested place of health and development in El Salvador over the last t
In the wake of structural adjustment programs in the 1980s and health reforms in the 1990s, the majority of sub-Saharan African governments spend less than ten dollars per capita on health annually, a
Abject Relations presents an alternative approach to anorexia, long considered the epitome of a Western obsession with individualism, beauty, self-control, and autonomy. Through detailed ethnographic
According to public health orthodoxy, blood for transfusion is safer when derived from voluntary, nonremunerated donors. As developing nations phase out compensated blood collection efforts to comply
In the wake of structural adjustment programs in the 1980s and health reforms in the 1990s, the majority of sub-Saharan African governments spend less than ten dollars per capita on health annually, a
Students of culture have been increasingly concerned with the ways in which cultural values are 'inscribed' on the body. These essays go beyond this passive construal of the body to a position in which embodiment is understood as the existential condition of cultural life. From this standpoint embodiment is reducible neither to representations of the body, to the body as an objectification of power, to the body as a physical entity or biological organism, nor to the body as an inalienable centre of individual consciousness. This more sensate and dynamic view is applied by the contributors to a variety of topics, including the expression of emotion, the experience of pain, ritual healing, dietary customs, and political violence. Their purpose is to contribute to a phenomenological theory of culture and self - an anthropology that is not merely about the body, but from the body.
Morality and medicine are inextricably intertwined in rural Haiti, and both are shaped by the different local religious traditions, Christian and Vodoun, as well as by biomedical and folk medical practices. When people fall ill, they seek treatment not only from Western doctors but also from herbalists, religious healers and midwives. Dr Brodwin examines the situational logic, the pragmatic decisions, that guide people in making choices when they are faced with illness. He also explains the moral issues that arise in a society where suffering is associated with guilt, but where different, sometimes conflicting, ethical systems coexist. Moreover, he shows how in the crisis of illness people rework religious identities and are forced to address fundamental social and political problems.
Some of the most interesting ethnographies of experience are concerned to highlight the indeterminate nature of life. Questioning Misfortune is very much within this tradition. Based on a long-term study of adversity and its social causes in Bunyole, eastern Uganda, it considers the way in which people deal with uncertainties of life, such as sickness, suffering, marital problems, failure, and death. Divination may identify causes of misfortune, ranging from ancestors and spirits to sorcerers. Sufferers and their families will then try out a variety of remedial measures, including pharmaceuticals, sorcery antidotes, and sacrifices. But remedies often fail, and doubt and uncertainty persist. Even the commercialisation of biomedicine, and the peril of AIDS can be understood in terms of a pragmatics of uncertainty.
This is one of the first studies of traditional medical education in an Asian country. Conducting extensive fieldwork in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province in the People's Republic of China, Elisabeth Hsu became the disciple of, a Qigong master a scholarly private practitioner, who almost wordlessly conveys esoteric knowledge and techniques; attended seminars given by a senior Chinese doctor, an acupuncturist and masseur, who plunges his followers into the study of arcane medical classics, and studied with students at the Yunnan College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, where the standardised knowledge of official Chinese medicine is inculcated. Dr Hsu compares the theories and practices of these different Chinese medical traditions and shows how the same technical terms may take on different meanings in different contexts. This is a fascinating, insider's account of traditional medical practices, which brings out the way in which the context of instruction shapes knowledge.
This stimulating collection of essays is the product of face-to-face dialogues among anthropologists, sociologists, and philosopher-historians, all of whom focus their attention on the newly created biomedical technologies and their application in practice. Drawing on ethnographic and historical case studies, the authors show how biomedical technologies are produced through the agencies of tools and techniques, scientists and doctors, funding bodies, patients, clients, and the public. Despite shared concerns, these essays reveal that the authors have achieved no consensus about the objectives of their research, and the deep epistemological divides clearly remain - making for provocative reading.
This book shows how practitioners in the emerging field of 'cultural epidemiology' describe human health, communicate with diverse audiences, and intervene to improve health and prevent disease. It uses textual and statistical portraits of disease to describe past and present collaborations between anthropology and epidemiology. Interpreting epidemiology as a cultural practice helps to reveal the ways in which measurement, causal thinking, and intervention design are all influenced by belief, habit, and theories of power. By unpacking many common disease risks and epidemiologic categories, this book reveals unexamined assumptions and shows how sociocultural context influences measurement of disease. Examples include studies of epilepsy, cholera, mortality on the Titanic, breastfeeding, and adolescent smoking. The book describes methods as varied as observing individuals, measuring social networks, and compiling data from death certificates. It argues that effective public health
