Medical Anthropology

Catalog description

Understandings of "health" and "illness" vary widely around the world. This course examines how an individual's interactions with the cultural and physical environment influence the experiences of health and illness. The class begins with an overview of the development of medical anthropology as a subfield, with attention to its relationship with other disciplinary approaches to questions of health, medicine, and disease. Course concepts are illustrated using international examples of health and illness, such as shamanism and shamanic healing; complementary and alternative medicine in the US; hospital birth versus midwifery; and the link between the individual and society in the healing process. The second part of the course focuses on biocultural perspectives on health, including the effects of prehistoric and historic life-ways and disease epidemics on the body. The third part of the class examines the politics of health, paying particular attention to the effects of race, ethnicity, gender, and class on health status and treatment. The final section of the course delves into the application of medical anthropology in the field of international development. Offered Occasionally.