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Exploring Medical Anthropology 2/e
Donald Joralemon
Coming March 2005 from Allyn & Bacon
Copyright 2006, 176 pp., Paper
ISBN: 0-205-44234-X
   
Summary

Donald Joralemon's widely popular Exploring Medical Anthropology offers the curious lay person a concise and engaging introduction to the field that presents competing theoretical perspectives in a balanced fashion.

Written in an accessible, jargon-free language, Exploring Medical Anthropology uses cases based on the author?s personal research experiences to explain four of the discipline's most important insights: 1) that biology and culture matter equally in the human experience of disease, 2) that the political economy is a primary epidemiological factor, 3) that ethnography is an essential tool to understand human suffering due to disease, and 4) that medical anthropology can help to alleviate human suffering.



Features

  • Well-developed examples from the author's own research form the basis of extended case studies, including coverage of the cholera outbreak of the 1990s in Peru, found in Chapters 3, 4, 5, 8 & 9 .
  • Shows students how different theoretical perspectives in medical anthropology (ecological, interpretive and critical approaches) can be applied to one case, enabling students to gain a fuller understanding of how each view contributes to a complete picture.
  • Raises student awareness of how medical anthropology relates to the resolution of health problems — including emerging diseases--and discusses the ethical issues this raises (Ch. 8).
  • Discusses how medical anthropology understands the role of healers--folk and biomedical--in the contemporary world, and the relationship between medical anthropologists and biomedical professionals (Chs. 6 and 7).
  • Concludes with a look at the relevance of medical anthropology to contemporary health issues and career paths in the field (Ch. 9).  


Table of Contents

Each chapter ends with "Suggested Readings" and "Notes."

Preface.

1.    What's So Cultural About Disease?

    Culture in Medicine.

    Development of Medical Anthropology.

    Medical Anthropology Today.

    Summary: Placing Medical Anthropology Among the Social Sciences of Medicine.

 

2.    Anthropological Questions and Methods in the Study of Sickness and Healing.

    Studying Shamans in Peru.

    Studying Medicine in the United States.

    Summary: The Anthropological Vision.

           

3. Recognizing Biological, Social and Cultural Interconnections: Evolutionary and Ecological Perspectives on a Cholera Epidemic.

    Thinking About Epidemics.

    History and Biology of Cholera.

    Epidemiological Accounts of Peru's Cholera Epidemic.

    Evolution and the Ecological Framework.

    Cholera and the Evolutionary Framework.

    Medical Anthropology Embraces the Ecological/Evolutionary Model

 

4.   Expanding the Vision of Medical Anthropology: Critical and Interpretive Views of the Cholera Epidemic.

    Political-Economy of Cholera.

    Political-Economic vs. Ecological/Evolutionary Perspectives.

    Interpretive View of Cholera.

    Taking a Broader, Inclusive Perspective.

 

5.   The Global Petri Dish.

 

    Transitions.

 

    SARS: The First Global Epidemic of the 21st Century.

 

    One Health Ecology: Challenges to the Ecological/ Evolutionary Perspective.

 

    Fluid Constructions.

 

    Whose Political Economy?

 

    Further Complications: The Threat of Bioterrorism.

 

6.   Healers and the Healing Professions.

    Healing Roles: Organizing the Diversity.

    Authority of Healers.

    Authority in the Folk Health Sector: Position of   Peruvian Curanderos.

    Authority in the Professional Health Care Sector: Case of Biomedicine.

    Challenges to Biomedical Authority.

    Authority of Biomedicine in Non-Western Countries.

    Conclusion.

           

7.   Applying Medical Anthropology.

    Medical Anthropology in International Development: A Brief History.

    Work of Applied Medical Anthropologists in International Contexts.

    Applying Medical Anthropology in the United States.

    Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Applied Anthropology Under Attack.

    Personal Reflections.

           

8. Anthropology and Medical Ethics.

    Medical Ethics: A Comparative Framework.

    Medical Ethics Beyond Biomedicine.

    Development of Bioethics in the United States.

    Social Sciences and Bioethics.

    Social Science: Out of the Closet.

 

9. A Look Back and a Glance Ahead.

    Advantages of Medical Anthropology.

    Thinking Anthropologically about HIV/AIDS.

    Directions for Future Work in Medical Anthropology.

    Conclusion.

Glossary.

References Cited.

 
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