Exploring Medical Anthropology

by Joralemon, Donald

• ISBN13: 9780205442348
• ISBN10: 020544234X
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-01-01
• Publisher: Prentice Hall

Summary

Donald Joralemon's widely popular Exploring Medical Anthropology offers the curious lay person a concise and engaging introduction to the field that presents competing theoretical perspectives in a balanced fashion.Written in an accessible, jargon-free language, Exploring Medical Anthropology uses cases based on the authors personal research experiences to explain four of the discipline's most important insights: 1) that biology and culture matter equally in the human experience of disease, 2) that the political economy is a primary epidemiological factor, 3) that ethnography is an essential tool to understand human suffering due to disease, and 4) that medical anthropology can help to alleviate human suffering.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
What's So Cultural about Disease?	1	(15)
Culture in Medicine	2	(6)
Disease in Other Cultures and Times	3	(1)
Impact of Culture on Contemporary Biomedicine	4	(4)
Development of Medical Anthropology	8	(4)
Medicine as a Social Process: William H. R. Rivers	9	(1)
Functional Views of Medicine: Erwin Ackerknecht	10	(1)
Applied Roots of Medical Anthropology	11	(1)
Medical Anthropology Today	12	(1)
Summary: Placing Medical Anthropology among the Social Sciences of Medicine	13	(1)
Suggested Readings	14	(1)
Notes	14	(2)
Anthropological Questions and Methods in the Study of Sickness and Healing	16	(14)
Studying Shamans in Peru	17	(4)
Research Questions	17	(2)
Research Methods	19	(1)
From Fieldwork to Analysis and Interpretation	19	(2)
Studying Medicine in the United States	21	(7)
Organ Transplantation as an Anthropological Subject	21	(1)
Research Questions	22	(4)
Research Methods	26	(2)
Summary: Anthropological Vision	28	(1)
Suggested Readings	29	(1)
Notes	29	(1)
Recognizing Biological, Social, and Cultural Interconnections: Evolutionary and Ecological Perspectives on a Cholera Epidemic	30	(14)
Thinking about Epidemics	31	(1)
History and Biology of Cholera	32	(1)
Epidemiological Accounts of Peru's Cholera Epidemic	33	(2)
Evolution and the Ecological Framework	35	(2)
Cholera and the Evolutionary Framework	37	(2)
Medical Anthropology Embraces the Ecological/Evolutionary Model	39	(2)
Suggested Readings	41	(1)
Notes	42	(2)
Expanding the Vision of Medical Anthropology: Critical and Interpretive Views of the Cholera Epidemic	44	(14)
Political-Economy of Cholera	45	(3)
Political-Economic versus Ecological/Evolutionary Perspectives	48	(2)
Interpretive View of Cholera	50	(4)
Taking a Broader, Inclusive Perspective	54	(3)
Suggested Readings	57	(1)
Notes	57	(1)
The Global Petri Dish	58	(12)
Transitions	59	(1)
SARS: The First Global Epidemic of the Twenty-First Century	60	(2)
One Health Ecology	62	(4)
Challenges to the Ecological/Evolutionary Perspective	62	(1)
Fluid Constructions: Challenges to the Interpretive Perspective	63	(1)
Whose Political Economy: Challenges to the Critical Perspective	64	(2)
Further Complications: The Threat of Bioterrorism	66	(2)
Suggested Readings	68	(1)
Notes	68	(2)
Healers and the Healing Professions	70	(19)
Healing Roles: Organizing the Diversity	71	(2)
Health Care Sectors	71	(1)
Healers' Relationships between and within Health Care Sectors	72	(1)
Authority of Healers	73	(1)
Social and Cultural Dimensions: General Concepts	73	(1)
Therapy Outcome and Healer Authority	73	(1)
Authority in the Folk Health Sector: Position of Peruvian Curanderos	74	(2)
Social Authority of Peruvian Curanderos	74	(1)
Outcome of Curandero Therapy	75	(1)
Cultural Authority of Curanderos	75	(1)
Authority in the Professional Health Care Sector: Case of Biomedicine	76	(3)
What Sets Biomedicine Apart?	76	(1)
Social Authority of Biomedical Healers	77	(1)
Outcome of Biomedical Healing	77	(1)
Cultural Authority of Biomedicine	78	(1)
Challenges to Biomedical Authority	79	(3)
Economic Critique and Biomedicine's Social Authority	79	(1)
Clinical Critique and Biomedicine's Cultural Authority	80	(1)
Outcome Critique	80	(1)
Impact of the Critiques	81	(1)
Authority of Biomedicine in Non-Western Countries	82	(3)
Good News, Bad News	82	(1)
Importance of Primary Health Care	83	(1)
Alma Ata and PHC in Question: Biomedicine Reasserts Its Authority	84	(1)
Conclusion	85	(1)
Suggested Readings	86	(1)
Notes	87	(2)
Applying Medical Anthropology	89	(19)
Medical Anthropology in International Development: A Brief History	92	(4)
Anthropological Trouble-Shooters, 1945--1973	92	(2)
Disenchantment and Disengagement	94	(1)
Social Soundness Guidelines and the Return of Applied Anthropology, 1973--1980	94	(1)
Reagan/Bush Years (1981--1993) and Beyond	95	(1)
Work of Applied Medical Anthropologists in International Contexts	96	(3)
Growth and Nutrition: An Educational Project in Indonesia	97	(1)
Medical Anthropology and HIV/AIDS Prevention: Sex Workers in Congo (Formerly Zaire)	98	(1)
Applying Medical Anthropology in the United States	99	(3)
Culturally Competency: Whose Culture, Whose Responsibility?	100	(2)
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Applied Medical Anthropology under Attack	102	(2)
Critical Medical Anthropology Assault on Applied Medical Anthropology	102	(1)
Response from Applied Medical Anthropologists	103	(1)
Personal Reflections	104	(2)
Conclusion	106	(1)
Suggested Readings	106	(1)
Notes	106	(2)
Anthropology and Medical Ethics	108	(16)
Medical Ethics: A Comparative Framework	109	(3)
Terminological Concerns	109	(1)
Question of Ethical Universals	110	(2)
Medical Ethics beyond Biomedicine	112	(2)
Medical Ethics in Small-Scale Societies	112	(1)
Ethics and Folk Healers	112	(1)
Ethics in the Great Traditions of Medicine	113	(1)
Development of Bioethics in the United States	114	(3)
Historical Perspective	114	(1)
Manifestations of Bioethics in Public Life	115	(1)
Deliberating Bioethics	116	(1)
Social Sciences and Bioethics	117	(1)
Social Science: Out of the Closet	118	(4)
Case of the Non-Heart-Beating Cadaver	118	(2)
Moral Passion and Social Science?	120	(1)
Medical Anthropology in Bioethics	121	(1)
Suggested Readings	122	(1)
Notes	122	(2)
A Look Back and a Glance Ahead	124	(8)
Advantages of Medical Anthropology	125	(1)
Sensitivity for Culture and Biology	125	(1)
Recognition That the Political-Economy Has Health Implications	125	(1)
Insistence on the Value of Ethnography	126	(1)
Commitment to Applying Medical Anthropology	126	(1)
Thinking Anthropologically about HIV/AIDS	126	(2)
AIDS and the Culture--Biology Interface	127	(1)
Political-Economic Factors in the Pandemic	127	(1)
AIDS Ethnography and Its Contribution to Prevention Planning	127	(1)
Directions for Future Work in Medical Anthropology	128	(2)
Culture, Health, and Science: A Model for Undergraduate Study	128	(1)
Academic and Professional Career Paths Related to Medical Anthropology	129	(1)
Conclusion	130	(1)
Suggested Readings	130	(1)
Notes	131	(1)
Glossary	132	(4)
References	136	(24)
Index	160