Medicine Anthropology Theory
Not a member yet
559 research outputs found
Sort by
Is there a pathological way of ageing? Questioning ‘Alzheimer’s disease’
No full textThis think piece discusses ‘Alzheimer’s disease’ from a critical anthropological perspective. I aim to challenge the taken-for-granted biomedical framing in four steps. First, a brief genealogical account shows that Alzheimer’s disease as a biomedical category has only recently become a public and global health preoccupation. Second, the concept of medicalization is mobilized to illustrate the construction of and the uncertainty around this new medical object. Third, I build a case for analysing this medical category within a sociocultural context. Finally, a brief account of the relevance of social intervention is given
Unsettling disciplinary frontiers: An opportunity to address inequities in genetic medicine?
Get PDFRecent advances in genetic research provide anthropologists with an opportunity to reconsider the meaning and importance of interdisciplinary research. This piece suggests that interdisciplinary thinking can help to redevelop health policies aimed at improving access to new genetic technology and addressing many health care inequities. Drawing from research on access to genetic testing among women with a breast cancer diagnosis in the United States, I explore how patient perspectives can be used to redefine how policy makers interpret the utility of genetic medicine. Individuals undergoing genetic testing describe how genetic knowledge is translated into salient change in their lives, a view rarely recognized in conventional evaluations of genetic medicine. This work also recognizes how the ‘potentialities’ of genetic medicine both fuel the engine of ongoing genetic research and motivate individuals to imagine possible future actions to improve health. This reflection is meant to provoke debate and contribute to discussion about how health policies can be designed to improve inequities in access to genetic medicine
‘We come in as “the nothing”’: Researching non-intervention in palliative care
Get PDFIn our ethnographic study of palliative care in a UK medical setting, we concerned ourselves with instances when medical staff chose not do something, which we came to call ‘noninterventions’. Such instances raised an obvious question: how does one study something that is not happening? In this Position Piece, we outline three ways in which we have tried to engage with this methodological question, from the initial grant application process to the point we are at now: first, a somewhat positivist approach, which allowed us to delineate the phenomenon of our study; second, a following technique, adopted to understand noninterventions as and when they are conceived by our informants; and third, an approach that tries to trace enactments of ‘not doing’ by mapping the range of different practices and, in so doing, elucidates how ‘not doing’ invariably occurs alongside other forms of doing. We describe what these approaches have taught us so far and reflect on the limits of each. We do so in the hope of providing others with starting points for studying nothings, ‘not doings’, and absences
Local virtue and global vision: The practice of eye donation in contemporary Sri Lanka
No full textA death radically rearranges kinship, debt, obligation, and responsibility, and it also triggers prescribed routines for mourning and material disposal of the corpse. It is into this complex and fraught unfolding of events that the rhetorics of corporea
Am I fine? Exploring everyday life ambiguities and potentialities of embodied sensations in a Danish middle-class community
No full textWoven into the fabric of human existence is the possibility of death and suffering from disease. This essential vulnerability calls forth processes of meaning making, of grappling with uncertainty and morality. In this article we explore the uncertainty and ambiguity that exists in the space between bodily sensations and symptoms of illness. Bodily sensations have the potential to become symptoms of disease or to be absorbed into ordinariness, prompting the question: how do we ascribe meaning to sensations? In the context of middle-class everyday life in Denmark, we show how different potentialities of ambiguous sensations are weighed against each other on a culturally and morally contingent continuum between normal and not normal, uncovering the complex interplay between the body, everyday life, and pervasive biomedical discourses focusing on health promotion, symptom awareness, and care seeking
‘A volunteer for life’: Interactions in resilience and service-use research in Malawi
Get PDFIn a time of renewed interest in the challenges of adolescent sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and service use, increased scholarly attention paid to fieldwork and knowledge production is critical. I describe the pleasure and challenges of engaging with multiple perspectives, spaces, places, and roles at a family centre in Malawi to understand the complexity of the interactions and relationships related to my doctoral fieldwork. This work is part of a large mixed-method study that explores SRH, service use, and resilience among adolescents living with HIV and attending a teen-club clinic in Blantyre, Malawi. Drawing from resilience theory and experiences of reflexivity, I reflect on my roles as a student of medical anthropology and public health, a ‘friend’, an ‘aunt’, and a ‘volunteer’; on my occupation of diverse spaces (clinics, homes, school grounds, digital); and on my use of multiple methods (including participants’ observations, individual and group interviews, workshops, feedback sessions, and fieldnotes), which make up the data collection, analysis, and interpretation processes. The reflections contained in this essay advance our understanding of the implications of the methodological considerations and ethical questions underscoring approaches to adolescents research
Stigmatized places as therapeutic landscapes: The beneficial dimensions of river-bottom homeless encampments
No full textUrban rivers in the United States have frequently been sites of long-term homeless encampments. Recent efforts to ‘restore’ these marginal waterways have focused on removing such camps, an approach that is justified in terms of concern for the health of both waterways and people. This article explores the intersection of landscape health and human health, based on twelve months of ethnographic research on the ecological restoration of the Ventura River in southern California. I argue that river-bottom camps contribute to the health and well-being of residents by helping them resist social exclusion and mitigate experiences of violence and stigma. It is important to recognize this complexity so that logics of exclusion are not unintentionally reproduced in how landscapes are understood, which can legitimate actions, such as camp removals, that cause marginalized communities additional harm. Embracing the complexity of therapeutic landscapes opens up possibilities for more just ways of restoring the health of human and nonhuman natures