Linda L. Barnes
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195167979
- eISBN:
- 9780199784981
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019516797X.003.0012
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
This chapter proposes two ways to study religion and healing. The first outlines a program that involves an urban ethnographic study of culturally/religiously based approaches to healing in the ...
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This chapter proposes two ways to study religion and healing. The first outlines a program that involves an urban ethnographic study of culturally/religiously based approaches to healing in the African Diaspora communities of Boston, Massachusetts. The second relates to ways in which findings from the first kind of course can be incorporated into different levels of medical education, thereby introducing a highly-focused aspect of religious studies into the training of biomedical clinicians.Less
This chapter proposes two ways to study religion and healing. The first outlines a program that involves an urban ethnographic study of culturally/religiously based approaches to healing in the African Diaspora communities of Boston, Massachusetts. The second relates to ways in which findings from the first kind of course can be incorporated into different levels of medical education, thereby introducing a highly-focused aspect of religious studies into the training of biomedical clinicians.
Arthur Kleinman
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520209657
- eISBN:
- 9780520919471
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520209657.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
In this collection, a scholar in medical anthropology takes stock of his recent intellectual odysseys. An anthropologist and psychiatrist who has studied in Taiwan, China, and North America since ...
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In this collection, a scholar in medical anthropology takes stock of his recent intellectual odysseys. An anthropologist and psychiatrist who has studied in Taiwan, China, and North America since 1968, he draws upon his bicultural, multidisciplinary background to propose alternative strategies for thinking about how, in the postmodern world, the social and medical relate. This book explores the border between medical and social problems, the boundary between health and social change. The author studies the body as the mediator between individual and collective experience, finding that many health problems—for example the trauma of violence or depression in the course of chronic pain—are less individual medical problems than interpersonal experiences of social suffering. He argues for an ethnographic approach to moral practice in medicine, one that embraces the infrapolitical context of illness, the responses to it, the social institutions relating to it, and the way it is configured in medical ethics. The chapters, previously published as essays in various journals, have been revised, updated, and brought together with an introduction, an essay on violence and the politics of post-traumatic stress disorder, and a new chapter that examines the contemporary ethnographic literature of medical anthropology.Less
In this collection, a scholar in medical anthropology takes stock of his recent intellectual odysseys. An anthropologist and psychiatrist who has studied in Taiwan, China, and North America since 1968, he draws upon his bicultural, multidisciplinary background to propose alternative strategies for thinking about how, in the postmodern world, the social and medical relate. This book explores the border between medical and social problems, the boundary between health and social change. The author studies the body as the mediator between individual and collective experience, finding that many health problems—for example the trauma of violence or depression in the course of chronic pain—are less individual medical problems than interpersonal experiences of social suffering. He argues for an ethnographic approach to moral practice in medicine, one that embraces the infrapolitical context of illness, the responses to it, the social institutions relating to it, and the way it is configured in medical ethics. The chapters, previously published as essays in various journals, have been revised, updated, and brought together with an introduction, an essay on violence and the politics of post-traumatic stress disorder, and a new chapter that examines the contemporary ethnographic literature of medical anthropology.
Arthur Kleinman
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520209657
- eISBN:
- 9780520919471
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520209657.003.0009
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This chapter aims to survey the present phase of medical anthropology through a close reading of recent ethnographies that represent the different approaches to the field, and tries to understand why ...
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This chapter aims to survey the present phase of medical anthropology through a close reading of recent ethnographies that represent the different approaches to the field, and tries to understand why ethnographies are effective within the area of health and healing. It also studies the process of contributing in the scholarly engagement with the literature, which it considers an important intersubjective practice of participating in the building of an academic field. Ideas such as medicine as a social idiom and medical ethnography are introduced.Less
This chapter aims to survey the present phase of medical anthropology through a close reading of recent ethnographies that represent the different approaches to the field, and tries to understand why ethnographies are effective within the area of health and healing. It also studies the process of contributing in the scholarly engagement with the literature, which it considers an important intersubjective practice of participating in the building of an academic field. Ideas such as medicine as a social idiom and medical ethnography are introduced.
Cheryl Mattingly and Linda Garro (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520218246
- eISBN:
- 9780520935228
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520218246.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
Stories of illness and healing are often arresting in their power, illuminating practices and experiences that might otherwise remain obscure. What can be learned through a comparative look at the ...
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Stories of illness and healing are often arresting in their power, illuminating practices and experiences that might otherwise remain obscure. What can be learned through a comparative look at the range of narrative theories and styles of narrative analysis used by anthropologists to make sense of their ethnographic data? Do divergent strategies yield different understandings of the illness experience and healing practices? Does a focus on narrative detract from or conceal other, more fruitful avenues for exploration? Through the analysis of stories drawn from a variety of ethnographic contexts, the contributors to this book address such questions. The book unites medical anthropology and narrative analysis to illuminate how personal narrative shapes the architecture of illness and the life course it yields.Less
Stories of illness and healing are often arresting in their power, illuminating practices and experiences that might otherwise remain obscure. What can be learned through a comparative look at the range of narrative theories and styles of narrative analysis used by anthropologists to make sense of their ethnographic data? Do divergent strategies yield different understandings of the illness experience and healing practices? Does a focus on narrative detract from or conceal other, more fruitful avenues for exploration? Through the analysis of stories drawn from a variety of ethnographic contexts, the contributors to this book address such questions. The book unites medical anthropology and narrative analysis to illuminate how personal narrative shapes the architecture of illness and the life course it yields.
Charles Leslie and Allan Young (eds)
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520073173
- eISBN:
- 9780520910935
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520073173.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
Like its classic predecessor, Asian Medical Systems, this book expands the study of Asian medicine. These chapters ask how patients and practitioners know what they know—what evidence of disease or ...
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Like its classic predecessor, Asian Medical Systems, this book expands the study of Asian medicine. These chapters ask how patients and practitioners know what they know—what evidence of disease or health they consider convincing and what cultural traditions and symbols guide their thinking. Whether discussing Japanese anatomy texts, Islamic humoralism, Ayurvedic clinical practice, or a variety of other subjects, the chapters offer a range of information and suggest new theoretical avenues for medical anthropology. This book covers a variety of topics including Asian medicine, patients, practitioners, evidence of disease, medical anthropology, cultural traditions, Japanese anatomy texts, Islamic humoralism, and Ayurvedic clinical practice.Less
Like its classic predecessor, Asian Medical Systems, this book expands the study of Asian medicine. These chapters ask how patients and practitioners know what they know—what evidence of disease or health they consider convincing and what cultural traditions and symbols guide their thinking. Whether discussing Japanese anatomy texts, Islamic humoralism, Ayurvedic clinical practice, or a variety of other subjects, the chapters offer a range of information and suggest new theoretical avenues for medical anthropology. This book covers a variety of topics including Asian medicine, patients, practitioners, evidence of disease, medical anthropology, cultural traditions, Japanese anatomy texts, Islamic humoralism, and Ayurvedic clinical practice.
Marjorie Topley
Jean DeBernardi (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789888028146
- eISBN:
- 9789882206663
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888028146.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This book collects the published articles of Dr. Marjorie Topley, who was a pioneer in the field of social anthropology in the postwar period. Her ethnographic research in Singapore and Hong Kong ...
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This book collects the published articles of Dr. Marjorie Topley, who was a pioneer in the field of social anthropology in the postwar period. Her ethnographic research in Singapore and Hong Kong sets a high standard for urban anthropology. Dr. Topley's publications reflect her training in British social anthropology, with its focus on fieldwork and detailed empirical observation. She was among the first to refine and extend those methods in the 1950s, adapting them to the study of modernizing urban settings like Singapore and Hong Kong. Her ethnographic research on the Great Way of Former Heaven sectarian movement and Cantonese women's vegetarian halls in Singapore in the 1950s was an early contribution to the study of sub-cultural groups in a complex urban society, and she asked insightful questions about the relationship between religion, secularism, and modernity. She also broke new ground in the field of Chinese medical anthropology.Less
This book collects the published articles of Dr. Marjorie Topley, who was a pioneer in the field of social anthropology in the postwar period. Her ethnographic research in Singapore and Hong Kong sets a high standard for urban anthropology. Dr. Topley's publications reflect her training in British social anthropology, with its focus on fieldwork and detailed empirical observation. She was among the first to refine and extend those methods in the 1950s, adapting them to the study of modernizing urban settings like Singapore and Hong Kong. Her ethnographic research on the Great Way of Former Heaven sectarian movement and Cantonese women's vegetarian halls in Singapore in the 1950s was an early contribution to the study of sub-cultural groups in a complex urban society, and she asked insightful questions about the relationship between religion, secularism, and modernity. She also broke new ground in the field of Chinese medical anthropology.
Cheryl Mattingly and Linda C. Garro
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520218246
- eISBN:
- 9780520935228
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520218246.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This introductory chapter discusses narrative as a theoretical construct and within the context of anthropology and medicine. It then examines the succeeding chapters and situates them within broader ...
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This introductory chapter discusses narrative as a theoretical construct and within the context of anthropology and medicine. It then examines the succeeding chapters and situates them within broader trends. These trends are not limited to medical anthropology or to cultural anthropology, but extend into various disciplines. It examines the centrality of narrative to some forms of therapeutic practice and discusses the definition of the term “story” and the different uses of the narrative form. The chapter also studies some important terms related to the narrative construct and views the narrative as a form of communication, representation, and construction of self.Less
This introductory chapter discusses narrative as a theoretical construct and within the context of anthropology and medicine. It then examines the succeeding chapters and situates them within broader trends. These trends are not limited to medical anthropology or to cultural anthropology, but extend into various disciplines. It examines the centrality of narrative to some forms of therapeutic practice and discusses the definition of the term “story” and the different uses of the narrative form. The chapter also studies some important terms related to the narrative construct and views the narrative as a form of communication, representation, and construction of self.
Marjorie Topley
Jean DeBernardi (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789888028146
- eISBN:
- 9789882206663
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888028146.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This volume contains published articles by the author, who was a pioneer in the field of social anthropology in the post-war period and also the first president of the revived Hong Kong Branch of the ...
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This volume contains published articles by the author, who was a pioneer in the field of social anthropology in the post-war period and also the first president of the revived Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Her ethnographic research in Singapore and Hong Kong set a high standard for urban anthropology, and helped create the fields of migration studies, gender studies, and medical anthropology.Less
This volume contains published articles by the author, who was a pioneer in the field of social anthropology in the post-war period and also the first president of the revived Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Her ethnographic research in Singapore and Hong Kong set a high standard for urban anthropology, and helped create the fields of migration studies, gender studies, and medical anthropology.
Mark Nichter, Mimi Nichter, Siwi Padmawti, and C.U. Thresia
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195374643
- eISBN:
- 9780199865390
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195374643.003.0012
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health, Epidemiology
This chapter describes Project QTI, a pioneering attempt to find out what we need to know to successfully carry out tobacco cessation in clinical and community settings. Formative research carried ...
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This chapter describes Project QTI, a pioneering attempt to find out what we need to know to successfully carry out tobacco cessation in clinical and community settings. Formative research carried out in India and Indonesia is described. Both countries have high prevalence rates of tobacco use across all social classes, popular indigenous as well as imported tobacco products, few cessation activities, and no established tobacco curriculum in medical schools. A biopolitical model is presented for encouraging systematic assessment of tobacco dependency at the sites of the body, environment, and state. The tobacco control field recognizes the value of transdisciplinary research. The chapter describes Project QTI's ongoing attempts to build a community of tobacco cessation practice that spans both efforts to encourage individuals to quit tobacco use and communities to establish smoke free households and worksites.Less
This chapter describes Project QTI, a pioneering attempt to find out what we need to know to successfully carry out tobacco cessation in clinical and community settings. Formative research carried out in India and Indonesia is described. Both countries have high prevalence rates of tobacco use across all social classes, popular indigenous as well as imported tobacco products, few cessation activities, and no established tobacco curriculum in medical schools. A biopolitical model is presented for encouraging systematic assessment of tobacco dependency at the sites of the body, environment, and state. The tobacco control field recognizes the value of transdisciplinary research. The chapter describes Project QTI's ongoing attempts to build a community of tobacco cessation practice that spans both efforts to encourage individuals to quit tobacco use and communities to establish smoke free households and worksites.
Alisha R. Winn
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780252042027
- eISBN:
- 9780252050763
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042027.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This essay explores the professional journey of scholar, activist, and pioneer Ira E. Harrison. Harrison was cofounder of the Association of Black Anthropologists and the organization’s first ...
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This essay explores the professional journey of scholar, activist, and pioneer Ira E. Harrison. Harrison was cofounder of the Association of Black Anthropologists and the organization’s first archivist. His educational path, activism in the 1960s, ethnographic research in the black church, and commitment to preserving and recognizing the contributions of black anthropologists, renders him a revolutionary pioneer in anthropology. He has conducted research on traditional medicine and integration on health policy and coedited African American Pioneers in Anthropology with Faye Harrison.Less
This essay explores the professional journey of scholar, activist, and pioneer Ira E. Harrison. Harrison was cofounder of the Association of Black Anthropologists and the organization’s first archivist. His educational path, activism in the 1960s, ethnographic research in the black church, and commitment to preserving and recognizing the contributions of black anthropologists, renders him a revolutionary pioneer in anthropology. He has conducted research on traditional medicine and integration on health policy and coedited African American Pioneers in Anthropology with Faye Harrison.
Namino Glantz
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195374643
- eISBN:
- 9780199865390
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195374643.003.0011
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health, Epidemiology
Demographic and epidemiological transitions in an era of social and economic uncertainty have provoked a pervasive elder health care crisis. Engaged anthropology using formative research is ...
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Demographic and epidemiological transitions in an era of social and economic uncertainty have provoked a pervasive elder health care crisis. Engaged anthropology using formative research is propitious for addressing elder health and care needs. Formative research is an iterative, multistage participatory process that draws on multiple methods and actors to develop, monitor, and assess community-congruent interventions. It entails becoming informed about and informing community dialogue; identifying needs and resources; generating intervention options via critical assessment and problem solving; and monitoring process, outcome, and responses. This chapter details how formative research was conducted in a small city in Chiapas (Mexico's southernmost state) to improve primary elder health care while engaging elders, care providers, researchers, and media.Less
Demographic and epidemiological transitions in an era of social and economic uncertainty have provoked a pervasive elder health care crisis. Engaged anthropology using formative research is propitious for addressing elder health and care needs. Formative research is an iterative, multistage participatory process that draws on multiple methods and actors to develop, monitor, and assess community-congruent interventions. It entails becoming informed about and informing community dialogue; identifying needs and resources; generating intervention options via critical assessment and problem solving; and monitoring process, outcome, and responses. This chapter details how formative research was conducted in a small city in Chiapas (Mexico's southernmost state) to improve primary elder health care while engaging elders, care providers, researchers, and media.
Joseph D. Calabrese
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199665372
- eISBN:
- 9780191748585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199665372.003.0003
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health, Epidemiology
Clinical Ethnography: Ethnographic Approaches to Health Experiences Research. This chapter introduces ethnographic (participant observation) approaches to study of health experiences. Ethnographers ...
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Clinical Ethnography: Ethnographic Approaches to Health Experiences Research. This chapter introduces ethnographic (participant observation) approaches to study of health experiences. Ethnographers studying health experiences immerse themselves in sociocultural contexts of illness and treatment for prolonged fieldwork periods to collect descriptive data and form an understanding of local culture and embodied experience. They pay close attention to insiders’ views in natural contexts and go for a depth of understanding rather than large sample sizes. This chapter discusses the origins of ethnography in the anthropological study of small scale societies and the subsequent application of the approach in hospitals and other medical settings. The chapter will discuss strengths of the approach (e.g. that it takes into account what people do as well as what they say and allows us to discover new information) as well as limitations (e.g. that it is time consuming and requires a special personal commitment by the researcher).Less
Clinical Ethnography: Ethnographic Approaches to Health Experiences Research. This chapter introduces ethnographic (participant observation) approaches to study of health experiences. Ethnographers studying health experiences immerse themselves in sociocultural contexts of illness and treatment for prolonged fieldwork periods to collect descriptive data and form an understanding of local culture and embodied experience. They pay close attention to insiders’ views in natural contexts and go for a depth of understanding rather than large sample sizes. This chapter discusses the origins of ethnography in the anthropological study of small scale societies and the subsequent application of the approach in hospitals and other medical settings. The chapter will discuss strengths of the approach (e.g. that it takes into account what people do as well as what they say and allows us to discover new information) as well as limitations (e.g. that it is time consuming and requires a special personal commitment by the researcher).
Arthur Kleinman
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520209657
- eISBN:
- 9780520919471
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520209657.003.0005
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This chapter studies suffering and how it can be included in an ethnography of interpersonal experience. It first studies an effective strategy used in medical anthropology, which demonstrates how a ...
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This chapter studies suffering and how it can be included in an ethnography of interpersonal experience. It first studies an effective strategy used in medical anthropology, which demonstrates how a patient's illness convictions and complaints reproduce a certain moral domain. The chapter introduces the anthropologists' interpretive dilemma and enumerates the categories for the ethnography of experience. Next, it examines the suffering that is associated with illness and its social sources, and presents a case study of a person who has experienced great suffering. From there the chapter looks at suffering in Chinese culture and the limitations of a cultural analysis on suffering.Less
This chapter studies suffering and how it can be included in an ethnography of interpersonal experience. It first studies an effective strategy used in medical anthropology, which demonstrates how a patient's illness convictions and complaints reproduce a certain moral domain. The chapter introduces the anthropologists' interpretive dilemma and enumerates the categories for the ethnography of experience. Next, it examines the suffering that is associated with illness and its social sources, and presents a case study of a person who has experienced great suffering. From there the chapter looks at suffering in Chinese culture and the limitations of a cultural analysis on suffering.
Alphonso Lingis
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226556765
- eISBN:
- 9780226557090
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226557090.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Phenomenology had taken consciousness in the first person to be the origin of meanings. For the postmodern philosophy of mind meanings are articulated in the taxonomic contrasts, semantic systems, ...
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Phenomenology had taken consciousness in the first person to be the origin of meanings. For the postmodern philosophy of mind meanings are articulated in the taxonomic contrasts, semantic systems, grammatical forms, and rhetorical paradigms of languages, which are social and institutional productions. But anthropological field researchers find that the ideology or the mythical or religious elaborations of a community are very unevenly present in the understanding of any informant. To understand what an informant means the researcher has to envision how he or she acts in a practical and social field. Medical anthropologists find that a patient has to compose his own account of the impact of his illness on his family, his work, his sense of the life he henceforth has to lead and the death that he has to face. Anthropological researchers who study the private religions elaborated by psychotics have come to recognize their positive and productive function.Less
Phenomenology had taken consciousness in the first person to be the origin of meanings. For the postmodern philosophy of mind meanings are articulated in the taxonomic contrasts, semantic systems, grammatical forms, and rhetorical paradigms of languages, which are social and institutional productions. But anthropological field researchers find that the ideology or the mythical or religious elaborations of a community are very unevenly present in the understanding of any informant. To understand what an informant means the researcher has to envision how he or she acts in a practical and social field. Medical anthropologists find that a patient has to compose his own account of the impact of his illness on his family, his work, his sense of the life he henceforth has to lead and the death that he has to face. Anthropological researchers who study the private religions elaborated by psychotics have come to recognize their positive and productive function.
Jessica M. Mulligan and Heide Castañeda (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781479897001
- eISBN:
- 9781479834402
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479897001.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
Unequal Coverage documents the everyday experiences of individuals across the United States as they attempted to access coverage and care in the five years following the passage of the Affordable ...
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Unequal Coverage documents the everyday experiences of individuals across the United States as they attempted to access coverage and care in the five years following the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The contributors to this edited volume employ research methods rooted in ethnography and focused on how reform was actually experienced on the ground by frontline health care workers, the newly insured, and those who remained uninsured. The book argues that while the ACA did extend social protections to some groups previously excluded from health insurance, its design- and controversy-plagued implementation also created new forms of exclusion. Access to affordable coverage options were highly segmented by state of residence, income, and citizenship status. To explain and contextualize the stratified experiences of health reform that the book’s authors documented across nine states, Unequal Coverage explores interrelated themes from medical anthropology: stratified citizenship, risk, and responsibility. In the years since its enactment, some 20 million uninsured Americans gained access to insurance coverage. And yet, the law remained unpopular and politically vulnerable. This book illustrates lessons learned from the contentious implementation of the ACA and reveals how the law became a flashpoint for battles over inequality, fairness, and the role of government.Less
Unequal Coverage documents the everyday experiences of individuals across the United States as they attempted to access coverage and care in the five years following the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The contributors to this edited volume employ research methods rooted in ethnography and focused on how reform was actually experienced on the ground by frontline health care workers, the newly insured, and those who remained uninsured. The book argues that while the ACA did extend social protections to some groups previously excluded from health insurance, its design- and controversy-plagued implementation also created new forms of exclusion. Access to affordable coverage options were highly segmented by state of residence, income, and citizenship status. To explain and contextualize the stratified experiences of health reform that the book’s authors documented across nine states, Unequal Coverage explores interrelated themes from medical anthropology: stratified citizenship, risk, and responsibility. In the years since its enactment, some 20 million uninsured Americans gained access to insurance coverage. And yet, the law remained unpopular and politically vulnerable. This book illustrates lessons learned from the contentious implementation of the ACA and reveals how the law became a flashpoint for battles over inequality, fairness, and the role of government.
Lesley A. Sharp
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520080010
- eISBN:
- 9780520918450
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520080010.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, African Cultural Anthropology
This chapter discusses the themes of women, migration, and power in relation to spirit possession and identity in northwest Madagascar. The setting is Ambanja, a booming migrant town in the heart of ...
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This chapter discusses the themes of women, migration, and power in relation to spirit possession and identity in northwest Madagascar. The setting is Ambanja, a booming migrant town in the heart of a prosperous plantation region called the Sambirano Valley, where identity is shaped by polyculturalism and manipulated through religious experience. Healing rituals, involving possession by ancestral tromba spirits, provide an important arena in which to articulate the problems of urban life. In this latter respect, the chapter explores the subjects in medical anthropology. A key assumption that runs throughout the chapter from Madagascar is that, first, inequality and power are often significant factors for understanding health and well-being. This is true not only within highly complex and stratified Western societies, but also in smaller communities in the Third World, where colonial policies and relations have either introduced new forms of inequality and stratification or exacerbated older ones.Less
This chapter discusses the themes of women, migration, and power in relation to spirit possession and identity in northwest Madagascar. The setting is Ambanja, a booming migrant town in the heart of a prosperous plantation region called the Sambirano Valley, where identity is shaped by polyculturalism and manipulated through religious experience. Healing rituals, involving possession by ancestral tromba spirits, provide an important arena in which to articulate the problems of urban life. In this latter respect, the chapter explores the subjects in medical anthropology. A key assumption that runs throughout the chapter from Madagascar is that, first, inequality and power are often significant factors for understanding health and well-being. This is true not only within highly complex and stratified Western societies, but also in smaller communities in the Third World, where colonial policies and relations have either introduced new forms of inequality and stratification or exacerbated older ones.
Iain Wilkinson and Arthur Kleinman
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520287228
- eISBN:
- 9780520962408
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520287228.003.0004
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This chapter surveys contemporary developments in research and writing on social suffering via a critical dialogue with C. Wright Mills’s account of the “sociological imagination.” Mills’s ...
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This chapter surveys contemporary developments in research and writing on social suffering via a critical dialogue with C. Wright Mills’s account of the “sociological imagination.” Mills’s sociological imagination is explored with reference to his concern to redevelop sociology as a form of critical pragmatism. We take steps to explain how our project might be compared to that initiated by Mills, but we emphasize that we are not so much concerned with critique as an end in itself but rather with the development of a form of social inquiry that operates for the promotion of caregiving. In this regard, we explain our own indebtedness to classical traditions of pragmatism (especially the works of William James, John Dewey, and Jane Addams). We offer a critical review of how social suffering is now being featured as an issue for inquiry and debate in contemporary sociology and anthropology.Less
This chapter surveys contemporary developments in research and writing on social suffering via a critical dialogue with C. Wright Mills’s account of the “sociological imagination.” Mills’s sociological imagination is explored with reference to his concern to redevelop sociology as a form of critical pragmatism. We take steps to explain how our project might be compared to that initiated by Mills, but we emphasize that we are not so much concerned with critique as an end in itself but rather with the development of a form of social inquiry that operates for the promotion of caregiving. In this regard, we explain our own indebtedness to classical traditions of pragmatism (especially the works of William James, John Dewey, and Jane Addams). We offer a critical review of how social suffering is now being featured as an issue for inquiry and debate in contemporary sociology and anthropology.
Bertin M. Louis
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780252042027
- eISBN:
- 9780252050763
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042027.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Osborne developed an interest in the burgeoning anthropological subdiscipline of medical anthropology and conducted his dissertation research in Nigeria, focusing on traditional African health care ...
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Osborne developed an interest in the burgeoning anthropological subdiscipline of medical anthropology and conducted his dissertation research in Nigeria, focusing on traditional African health care systems and their relationship to Western biomedical systems. Osborne studied in the Nigerian village of Ibara Orile and explored how Yoruba villages serve as therapeutic communities for the mentally ill. His research interests brought him back to Nigeria several times, and during one of these visits his Yoruba research consultants made him Chief Adila of Ibara, associating his visits with preserving peace during times of violent unrest.Less
Osborne developed an interest in the burgeoning anthropological subdiscipline of medical anthropology and conducted his dissertation research in Nigeria, focusing on traditional African health care systems and their relationship to Western biomedical systems. Osborne studied in the Nigerian village of Ibara Orile and explored how Yoruba villages serve as therapeutic communities for the mentally ill. His research interests brought him back to Nigeria several times, and during one of these visits his Yoruba research consultants made him Chief Adila of Ibara, associating his visits with preserving peace during times of violent unrest.
Iain Wilkinson and Arthur Kleinman
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520287228
- eISBN:
- 9780520962408
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520287228.003.0007
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This chapter develops the arguments of the last, focusing on the practice of caregiving. Our interest lies in caregiving not only as a moral and social practice but also as a form of social pedagogy. ...
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This chapter develops the arguments of the last, focusing on the practice of caregiving. Our interest lies in caregiving not only as a moral and social practice but also as a form of social pedagogy. We argue that while caregiving should be promoted as a social value, it should also be taken up as a component of social inquiry. As a practice, caregiving involves individuals in activities that expose them to forms of social understanding that are denied to those who merely observe or think about social life. The social understanding gained through practices of caregiving is our concern here. This is explored via an account of Jane Addams’s approach to “doing sociology,” with examples from her work in Hull-House. We celebrate Addams as an early advocate of the type of social understanding and sociological/anthropological practice that we are seeking to promote. We also outline some ways in which this is liable to be left compromised and frustrated within the culture and institutions of the modern university and the pressures placed upon academics to conform to the norms of “career” and the quest for recognition in terms of standards technical expertise. Notwithstanding these pressures, we review some ways in which medical anthropology might operate to institute approaches to social inquiry similar to those advocated by Addams.Less
This chapter develops the arguments of the last, focusing on the practice of caregiving. Our interest lies in caregiving not only as a moral and social practice but also as a form of social pedagogy. We argue that while caregiving should be promoted as a social value, it should also be taken up as a component of social inquiry. As a practice, caregiving involves individuals in activities that expose them to forms of social understanding that are denied to those who merely observe or think about social life. The social understanding gained through practices of caregiving is our concern here. This is explored via an account of Jane Addams’s approach to “doing sociology,” with examples from her work in Hull-House. We celebrate Addams as an early advocate of the type of social understanding and sociological/anthropological practice that we are seeking to promote. We also outline some ways in which this is liable to be left compromised and frustrated within the culture and institutions of the modern university and the pressures placed upon academics to conform to the norms of “career” and the quest for recognition in terms of standards technical expertise. Notwithstanding these pressures, we review some ways in which medical anthropology might operate to institute approaches to social inquiry similar to those advocated by Addams.
Elizabeth L. Krause
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226557915
- eISBN:
- 9780226558103
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226558103.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, European Cultural Anthropology
Hospital-based participant observation and interviews with Chinese parents and healthcare professionals inform this chapter. The point of departure is a demographic dynamic in which more than half of ...
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Hospital-based participant observation and interviews with Chinese parents and healthcare professionals inform this chapter. The point of departure is a demographic dynamic in which more than half of the babies born in Prato’s hospital were registered to foreign women. A medical anthropology lens focuses on embodied encounters to expose jarring and uncertain moments as public health institutions safeguard and discipline Chinese parents. Meanwhile, Chinese migrants negotiate expert views to cope with transnational lives. The intimate space of an examining room allows observation of interactions between health-care professionals and parents who bring in their infants for three-month checkups. Ethnographic encounters pivot around five patient cases to reveal an empathetic yet taxed medical staff who deliver far more than healthcare: they also dole out strong practical and moral messages about body weight, head shape, feeding, dressing, and parenting. The author develops the concept of encounter ethnography and uses literary devices to deepen themes of beauty, flood, and hardship. Metaphors of rain and water contrast with “rational” categories put into practice through routines of professional expertise that negate global supply chains and amplify commentary on moral behavior, especially related to parenting. The encounters reveal how globalization writes itself on bodies in surprising ways.Less
Hospital-based participant observation and interviews with Chinese parents and healthcare professionals inform this chapter. The point of departure is a demographic dynamic in which more than half of the babies born in Prato’s hospital were registered to foreign women. A medical anthropology lens focuses on embodied encounters to expose jarring and uncertain moments as public health institutions safeguard and discipline Chinese parents. Meanwhile, Chinese migrants negotiate expert views to cope with transnational lives. The intimate space of an examining room allows observation of interactions between health-care professionals and parents who bring in their infants for three-month checkups. Ethnographic encounters pivot around five patient cases to reveal an empathetic yet taxed medical staff who deliver far more than healthcare: they also dole out strong practical and moral messages about body weight, head shape, feeding, dressing, and parenting. The author develops the concept of encounter ethnography and uses literary devices to deepen themes of beauty, flood, and hardship. Metaphors of rain and water contrast with “rational” categories put into practice through routines of professional expertise that negate global supply chains and amplify commentary on moral behavior, especially related to parenting. The encounters reveal how globalization writes itself on bodies in surprising ways.
