2007 Handbooks

This course offers an introduction to medical anthropology and cross-cultural beliefs relating to illness and healing. We consider different notions of disease causality and examine the proposition that good health, and conversely ill health, is never just about the body. Throughout the course we look at conditions of dis-ease as having social as well as biological origins and take the point of view that ideas of health and methods of treating illness are deeply lodged in cultural frameworks. Thus we treat healing practices, including Western bio-medicine, as inevitably based in culturally specific systems of understanding people and their place in the world. In this respect, ideas of illness and what are deemed appropriate healing practices tell us much about the human condition in diverse cultural settings. Specific topics include cross cultural approaches to bodily and mental disorders, the social construction of illness, the role of symbolism in healing, emotions and embodiment, shamanistic practices, science and biomedicine, gender and health, alternative medicine, health promotion and regulation, and new infectious diseases .