discipline that investigates the nature and causes of human variation and those aspects of life that are common to all of humanity.
Anthropologists seek to understand similarities and differences in behavior and biology across cultures and populations and how these dimensions change over time (both historic and prehistoric time scales).
All aspects of human behavior, such as language, kinship, economic and political systems, subsistence, religious beliefs, and healing practices, among others, are the focus of anthropological research
In her book Other-Worldly: Making Chinese Medicine through Transnational Frames (2009), medical anthropologist _______ challenges many of the stereotypes of Chinese medicine: that it is somehow emblematic of an ancient Chinese culture, regionally limited with fixed healing practices that are the antithesis of, or merely "alternative" to, Western biomedicine
Instead she argues that Chinese medical practices vary widely even within China.
Rather than undergoing a regimented and fixed set of health care practices, patients participate in a dynamic health care environment. Patients and doctors carefully negotiate treatments.
And no good physician ever writes the same prescription twice because the treatment must meet the needs of each specific patient
She notes three key historical moments over the
past century that have significantly reshaped modern Chinese medicine
First, the early-twentieth-century expansion
of Western biomedicine into China influenced the practice of Chinese medicine. Western biomedicine's emphasis on institution building, laboratory research, clinical and teaching practices, and even insurance policies reshaped Chinese medical thinking and practice. Today the everyday world of Chinese medicine includes interactions with biomedical professionals.
Patients move back and forth between biomedicine and Chinese medicine
Second, upon the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the new Chinese government moved to institutionalize traditional Chinese medicine, subsidize research, formalize teaching, and establish a process for professional certification.
Finally, she documents the shift of Chinese medicine beginning in the 1980s from primarily a developing-world medical practice to one with established niches in developed countries
Carefully demonstrates how Chinese medicine—often viewed as an ancient, culturally specific, fixed ethnomedicine "alternative" to Western biomedicine—has been relocated in both time and space to represent a modern, effective, globally respected body of health care practices
Local systems of health and
healing rooted in culturally
specific norms and values.
• Study of local systems of health and healing
• Embedded in culturally specific norms and values
• Creating unique strategies for dealing with diseases
• Conceptualizing the experience of:
•
Health
• Illness
• The physical world
-This field involves the comparative study of local systems of health and healing rooted in culturally specific norms and values; it includes the ways in which local cultures create unique strategies for identifying and treating disease and conceptualizing the experience of health, illness, and the physical world
-Early research on ethnomedicine focused primarily on non-Western health systems and emphasized natural healing remedies such as herbs, teas, and massage; reliance on religious ritual in health practices; and the role of locally trained healers such as shamans, spirit mediums, and priests as health care professionals
-But today, as we will see, even Western biomedicine, which emphasizes science and technology in healing but also reflects a particular system of cultural meanings, is considered through
the lens of ethnomedicine.
-Today medical anthropologists use the concept of ethnomedicine to refer to local health systems everywhere
-From the perspective of medical anthropology, all medical systems constitute a form of ethnomedicine because they develop from and are embedded in a particular local cultural reality
-But medical anthropologists have been careful to point out the ways in which, like other ethnomedical systems, the epistemology (ways of knowing) and practice of Western biomedicine are rooted in a particular system of knowledge that draws heavily on European
enlightenment values. This system includes ideas of rationality,
individualism, and progress—values and ideas that are culturally specific and not universally held. The individual body is the focus of treatment.
Diagnosis and treatment are based on rational scientific data. And there is a firm conviction that direct intervention through surgery and medications based on scientific facts will positively affect health
A practice, often associated
with
Western medicine, that seeks to
apply the principles of biology
and the natural sciences to the
practice of diagnosing disease
and promoting healing
• Applies the principles of biology and the natural science to:
• The practice of diagnosing diseases and promoting healing
• Encompasses many local variations and a range of treatment practices
• Characterized by the use of medication, surgery, and other invasive
treatments
• A predominance in many Western
cultures
• All medical systems constitute a form of ethnomedicine
• As they develop from and are embedded in particular local cultural reality
• We might call all healers ethno-healers:
• Practicing local health knowledge about disease, illness, and health
-Encompasses many local variations and a wide
range of treatment practices. But the use of medication, surgery, and other invasive
treatments is characteristic of biomedical healing practices
-Because biomedicine is closely linked with Western economic and political expansion, it has taken hold well beyond its original local cultural boundaries and increasingly has gained an aura of universality, modernity, and progress
-Western biomedicine are rooted in a particular system of knowledge that draws heavily on European enlightenment values. This system includes ideas of rationality, individualism, and progress—values and ideas that are culturally specific and not universally held. The individual body is the focus of treatment. Diagnosis and treatment are based on rational scientific data. And there is a firm conviction that direct intervention through surgery and medications based on scientific facts will positively affect health
An approach to the study of
health and illness that analyzes
the impact of inequality and
stratification within systems of
power on individual and group
health outcomes
(1) how economic and political systems, race, class, gender, and sexuality create and perpetuate unequal access to health care, and
(2) how health systems themselves
are systems of power that generate disparities in health by defining who is sick, who gets treated, and how
-These anthropologists look beyond Western biomedicine's traditional focus on individual patients' problems; INSTEAD they analyze patterns of health and illness AMONG ENTIRE GROUPS
-These anthropologists search for the origins of these health
disparities, the mechanisms that perpetuate them, and strategies for overcoming them
• Explores health as a system of power:
• How economic and political systems, race, class, gender, and sexuality create
unequal access to health care
• How health systems themselves are systems of power that generate disparities in health by defining who is sick, who gets treated, and how
• Provides unique explanation for the root causes of health disparities
• Revealing that the
distribution of health and illness mirror that of wealth and
power
• Since the distribution of health and illness cannot be explained solely on:
• Genetic vulnerabilities, individual behaviors
• The random spread of pathogens through populations
• The study of healing practices and health systems around the globe
• Indigenous and tribal communities
• Farming communities
• Urban metropolises and migrant communities
• Generates
knowledge on:
• Ideas about the causes for health and disease
• Varied cultural strategies to address pain, treat illness, and promote
health
• Key: the beliefs and practices are intertwined with the local
perspectives
• Their view of how the world works and of how individual's body is
related to his/her surroundings (p. 396)
• Distinguish between disease and illness
Folk medicine
• Folk medicine: ordinary people's perceptions of health, illness, and cures
•
Studies of folk medicine among Hispanic populations in the
US, Latin America, and Mexico provide unique perspectives
• Susto: a common folk illness (fright sickness) among Hispanics
• Severe cases (espanto) result in higher death rates (diabetes, liver disease or cancer)
• Greta and azarcon (a folk cure for empacho- constipation and indigestion
-These anthropologists employ a variety of analytical perspectives to examine the wide range of experiences and practices that humans associate with disease, illness, health, and well-being—both today and in the past
-We study the spread of disease and pathogens through the human population (known as epidemiology) by examining the medical ecology: the interaction of diseases with the natural environment and human culture.
-Looking more broadly, THESE ANTHROPOLOGISTS use an INTERPRIVITST APPROACH to study health systems as systems of meaning: How do humans across cultures make sense of health and illness? How do we think and talk and feel about illness, pain, suffering, birth, and mortality?
-this anthropology's HOLISTIC APPROACH to health and illness—examining epidemiology, meaning, and power—assumes that health and illness are more than a result of germs, individual behavior, and genes.
-Health is also a product of our environment; our access to adequate nutrition, housing, education, and health care; and the absence of poverty, violence, and warfare
The
movement of diseases,
medical treatments, and entire
health care systems, as well
as those seeking medical care,
across national borders.
-With both positive and negative
results. Medical treatments and technologies cross national borders as vaccines have been introduced worldwide to treat previously fatal or debilitating illnesses such as polio, tuberculosis, measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, typhoid, and diphtheria. Antibiotics treat bacterial infections. Pesticides inhibit
the spread of disease-carrying insects.
At the same time, diseases migrate on a global scale. HIV/AIDS knows no national boundaries. Medical researchers travel with their
scientific knowledge and technology in search of subjects for medical research and experimental clinical trials. Images of youth, health, and beauty (as well as consumer products that purport to provide and prolong them) infuse global media.
The movement of diseases, health care systems,
those seeking medical
care
Traditional healers whose healing practices
are deeply rooted in Tibetan Buddhism
based on achieving bodily and spiritual balance between the individual and the surrounding universe. They diagnose ailments by asking
questions of the patient, examining bodily wastes, and carefully taking the pulse.
Recommended treatments include changes in diet and behavior—both social and religious—and the use of natural medicines made from local plants and minerals.
Shaped into pills, these remedies are then boiled in water and taken by the patient as an infusion, or drink. Pordié reports that () treatments are effective for the vast majority of the Ladakhis' health problems, such as respiratory difficulty from the high altitude and smoke in dwellings, hypertension from high-salt diets, and psychological stress.
This type of practioner does not perform surgery. Patients who need surgery are transported, if possible, to an urban area to be treated by a doctor trained in Western biological medicine
-Their healing practices are under threat from Westernization, militarization, and economic liberalization
-They must now run their therapeutic
practices more like businesses, selling medicines and charging for services rather
than bartering. Their time to gather medicines has become limited. And with increasing social mobility, the intergenerational transmission of their skills has been disrupted
Tibetan medicine has been embraced as an "alternative medicine."
From the perspective of medical anthropology, we might call all healers ethno-healers, practicing local health knowledge about disease,
illness, and health.