Medical anthropological perspective

Question 1

what is medical anthropology

Answer 1

• The study of health, illness, healthcare, and related topics from the anthropological perspective

Question 2

what does medical anth draw upon

Answer 2

○ A subfield that draws upon archaeological, cultural, biological, and linguistic anthropology to better understand factors influencing health and well being
○ Draws different theoretical approaches (eg evolutionary, biocultural, interpretive)

Question 3

is med anth recent or old? what approaches used?

Answer 3

• One of the youngest and fastest growing specialization
○ Both theoretical and applied approaches
○ Society for medical anthropology (1970) - part of the AAA

Question 4

3 central features of anth?

Answer 4

○ Comparative (cross cultural)
○ Evolutionary (change over time)
○ Holistic (multifaceted)

Question 5

what roles does culture play in anth

Answer 5

• Culture as a central concept

○ Attributes that are shared and learned

Question 6

3 key questions for medical anth

Answer 6

○ How do we construct health?
○ How do we perceive disease?
○ How do we suffer?

Question 7

holistic perspective?

Answer 7

• • Multifaceted, whole picture
  • All these factors can influence your health, and can interlap while affecting you

Question 8

what 3 types of studies are considered the roots of medical anth

Answer 8

foster 1978);

	1. The study of "primitive" medicine, witchcraft and magic 
	2. Studies of personality and mental health in diverse cultural settings 
	3. Applied studies in international public health and planned community change programs

Question 9

what led to the development of medical anth? two goals?

Answer 9

• Post WWII, anthropologists hired to generate data about health and nutrition

1. Ascertain the "fitness" of Americans 
2. Address the "wretched health conditions" and lack of infrastructure following independence from colonial rule

Question 10

what did the creation of WHO help with?

Answer 10

• Creation of WHO (1948) - anthropologists hired to address “cultural barriers” to health promotion
○ Helped dispel the prevailing view that resistance to biomedical interventions was due to ignorance, superstition, or stubbornness

Question 11

What does a biocultural perspective consider?

Answer 11

• Considers the interaction of social, historical, ecological & biological aspects of health issues
○ Within & between populations; Local & global scales

Question 12

how are bodies and cultures/histories connected?? local biologies?

Answer 12

• Human bodies, cultures & histories have complex interactive relationships
○ “Local biologies”
• The individual body as a starting point
○ Variation in biochemical processes, nutritional requirements & internal anatomy

Question 13

how can we bioculturally perceive the body

Answer 13

○ Ethnobiology & ethnomedicine; local cultural model

Question 14

what is the biocultural synthesis?

Answer 14

• Wenner Gren Symposium (1992) - attempt to address the “physical-cultural divide”
  
  • Biology and culture as “dialectically intertwined”

Question 15

quote on biocultural synthesis/ its necessity?

Answer 15

○ “Anthropology, properly construed, is not separable into the physical and the social. Anthropology is at the nexus of the biological and social, a biocultural synthesis spanning an enormous range of comparative, historical, & dynamic material” (Levins & Lewontin 1998)

Question 16

how can we see biology and culture as dialectically intertwined

Answer 16

• Biology and culture as “dialectically intertwined”
○ Investigate how sociocultural & political economic processes affect human biologies & then how compromised biologies threaten the social fabric
○ Intersections rather than rigid dichotomies