Medicine Anthropology Theory
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Unstable rights: Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and access to rights in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Get PDFPeople with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Rio de Janeiro accessed basic rights of citizenship, including socioeconomic rights and even formal citizenship, through their use of the public health care system. Access to those rights, however, was unstable and this had life-and-death implications. I argue that patients could only fulfil their right to live after it had been jeopardised by the absence of basic socioeconomic rights that rendered life precarious. Thus, the right to live is not a prerequisite of other rights, but rather cannot be fulfilled without them. I discuss the politics of life in this context based on ethnographic fieldwork in an outpatient clinic for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and interviews with patients, health professionals, and activists, all conducted in 2009 and 2010 in Rio de Janeiro
‘They might mistake you for an “informant”’: Anthropology in the time of the Philippine drug war
Get PDFThis article is a reflection on doing anthropology in the Philippines amid the government’s punitive antidrug campaign and on the impact of ethnographic research on public discourses on drugs. Using my own ethnographic research as a starting point, I outline how a journal article I published about the lived experiences of young men who use drugs took on renewed significance years later, in a different policy regime. I then outline a research agenda for the anthropology of drug use in the country. Despite the ethical, methodological, and personal challenges of drug-related research, the potential to give voice to ‘hidden populations’ and argue for humane, evidenced-based policies should encourage anthropologists and other social scientists to persevere
Researching end-of-life care from a social science perspective: Past, present, and future directions
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Discomfort, complaints, and claims: Conducting fieldwork with refugees with disabilities
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Ghosts in the health machine: Visits from the dead in hospital
Get PDFIll health and hospitalisation can conjure up both benign and threatening visits from the dead. This piece is an exploratory attempt to understand these visits in the context of a long cultural history of the relationship between the ill and dying, and those already dead. It looks, too, at the role played by the machine of the hospital, with all its constituent parts, in both this cultural history and manifestation of figures of the dead during illness today. The article uses evidence from two narrative studies of delirium conducted by the author in the United Kingdom and South Africa in 2013 and 2017 respectively, as well as brief reflections on experiences within the author’s family
Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus and human-camel relationships in Qatar
Get PDFThis article investigates camel raising as a possible cause of transmission of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) on the Arabian Peninsula. Drawing on collective research among camel workers in Qatar, it shows the difficulties of asking questions about camel raising in the context of a potential zoonosis, given the secretive nature of herding practices and the values attached to camels in Arab societies. It suggests that the concentration of camels in farms and central markets after the ban of camel grazing as well as the revival of the tradition of drinking camel milk have increased the risks of the transmission of MERS-CoV from camels to humans. The recent valorisation of camels, in the context of the transformation of Qatar from a pastoral economy to a global trade centre, may appear to be an obstacle in the surveillance of MERS-CoV, since camel owners are prone to denying that their animals are infected, but it can be converted into an asset if public health becomes a key element of national pride alongside camel raising
Translational competency: On the role of culture in obesity interventions
Get PDFThis article introduces the notion of ‘translational competency’, a skill of attending to different understandings of health and how these are negotiated between medical settings and everyday life. This skill is especially important for the design of obesity-prevention policies and programs, given the diverse values surrounding both healthy eating and desirable weight. Through its focus on communicative interactions, translational competency entails a refusal to treat cultural differences regarding diet or body size as a problem. Rather, it encourages engagement with the relational contexts out of which health problems develop and transform, taking culture to be a process of negotiation and adaptation. In this article I present an example of the utility of the skill of translational competency taken from research on obesity in Guatemala. I then illustrate how translational competency might be used in the design of obesity interventions
