Transcript - Catalyst - University of Washington

Welcome to:
ANTH/HSERV 475
Perspectives in Medical Anthropology
Week 2: Tue, 10/6/2009
Introduction to Medical Anthropology
University of Washington
Evening Degree Program
Tue & Thu 7:00 pm – 9:20 pm
Balmer Hall 304
Alejandro Cerón
Office: Denny Hall 443
Office hours: Tue & Thu 5-7 pm
Mailbox Denny Hall Mezzanine
[email protected]
Outline
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Today’s Goals:
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5.
6.
Explain what is Med Anth
Identify key terms from readings
Apply illness/disease dichotomy
Organize personal account parters
Course website tour
Assignment due next week
Summary of today’s readings
Key terms – glossary
Illness/disease
Personal account partners
1. Course WorkSpace tour
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Course WorkSpace – use it please!
Remember office hours:
– Tue & Thu 5-7pm - Denny Hall 443
– Tue & Thu 9-9:20pm – Balmer Hall 304
– By appointment (email me)
2. Next week assignment
Week 3 (Tue Oct 13)
Article presenting “expert” perspective
What?
•Bring to class:
•article from a newspaper or magazine or website,
•portraying “expert” perspective
•topic related to your personal account.
How?
Come prepared to present a verbal summary.
Graded as
Credit (5% of final grade)
NoCredit (0% of final grade).
3. Today’s Readings (1)
Chapter 1
Introducing Medical
Anthropology
Chapter 2
The origins and
theories of Medical
Anthropology
Book cover
3.
Today’s
Readings
(2)
John M. Janzen, the author
University of Kansas
Research Experience
 Lower Congo, 1964-6, 1969, 1982
(health and patterns of health-care
seeking);
 Eastern & Southern Africa, 1982-3
(ngoma healing and interpretations of
misfortune);
 Great Lakes region, 1994-5 (post-war
trauma relief and healing);
 West Africa & Sahel (Senegal &
Sudan), 2000, 2001, 2004 (Sufi
healing).
John M. Janzen at Izirangabo refugee camp
3. Today’s Readings (3)
Chapter 1. Introducing Medical
Anthropology
 The social fabric of health
 Medical Anthropology
 3 examples (kuru, birthing, Asian
medicines)
 Research basis of Medical
Anthropology
3. Today’s Readings (4)
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“Medical anthropology is the study of health, illness, and
healing across the range of human societies and over the
course of human experience, with an emphasis on how
members of the community direct their behaviors, articulate
their ideas, and organize their resources in these realms.
includes the study of the patterns of disease within an environment
and the ways in which diseases relate dynamically to living
organisms – especially human organisms.
includes the ways in which the human community understands and
responds to these challenges to its existence.
may also include the community’s access to the resources that
maintain or restore health, or the exclusion from such resources by
the community’s power structure.
studies the meaning of the signs of illness and suffering as part of
the overall study of cultural traditions, and strives to interpret them
in the light of wider traditions of ritual and religion” (p. 2)
Remember from last
week?
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Medical Anthropology studies
– Social and cultural context where health,
disease and healing (h-d-h) happen.
– Multiple expressions of h-d-h (biological,
political, behavioral, cultural, etc).
– Ways in which people organize to take
care of h-d-h, especially in places with
evident inequality.
Let’s compare both
Janzen’s
 Study of health, illness, and
healing across the range of
human societies and over
the course of human
experience
 Emphasis on behaviors,
ideas, and resources.
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Includes:
patterns of disease
Ways to understands and
respond
community’s access to
resources
Meaning of the signs of illness
and suffering
Last week’s
 Study of
 Context of health, disease
and healing
 Multiple expressions of hd-h
 Ways in which people
organize to take care of hd-h
What do you find useful of each?
What are their weaknesses?
3. Today’s Readings (5)
Chapter 2. The origins and theories of
medical anthropology
 Emerged as specialty in 1960s
– Understand “exotic” health care practices
– Improve health care in “Third World”
countries
– “Crisis of medicine”
– Technological developments
3. Today’s Readings (6)
Heterogeneity of Medical Anthropology
 Sociocultural
 Biocultural
 Applied “Development”
 “Clinical”
 Comparative study of health systems
 Culture in biocultural
 Cultural construction of medicine
 Critical Exercise:
Pick one perspective and look at the following
video through that perspective’s lenses.
What questions would you want to ask in order to
understand Tarantism?
Exercise

Tarantismo
Lycosa tarentula
Italian Anthropologist Ernesto
de Martino (1908-1965)
Some contemporary
Medical Anthropologists
Artur Kleinman
NY Times
Harvard
 Mark Nichter
U Arizona
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Nancy ScheperHughes
CNN video
CNN video
UC Berkeley
4. Key terms - glossary
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Medical anthropology
Ethnography
Sickness
Disease
Illness
Healing
Biomedicine
Sign
Symptom
Symbol
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Medical pluralism
Modernity
Culture
Social reproduction of
health
Explanatory model
Placebo, nocebo
Culture-bound
syndrome
5. Illness/disease dichotomy
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A way to distinguish sufferer’s perception of the experience from
objectively discovered entity.
Illness: the sufferer’s perception of the individual experience of
suffering; may occur with or without disease being identified;
culturally embedded, subjective definition given to suffering by the
patient, and to behavior in which it is expressed.
Disease: a condition that is objectively identified with a medical
label or diagnostic name, based on externally established signs;
may be identified with or without there being a subjective
perception of illness by the individual; objective condition or
pathology as determined by a medical professional.
Sickness: the individual or group subjective experience of suffering
Suffering: the subjective, usually more chronic, condition of
affliction or painful existence; broader than sickness, the existential
experience of life of hardship and difficulty, may be permanent
human condition, often accounted for in religion and wisdom
literature.
(all definitions from Janzen 2002)
Exercise
Groups of 3
 Watch videos and think about the definitions
of illness and disease.
 What ambiguities or assumptions do the
definitions have in terms of
subjective/objective knowledge?
ADHD Diagnosis
ADD doesn’t exist
My son has ADHD
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5. Illness/disease dichotomy
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A way to distinguish sufferer’s perception of the experience from
objectively discovered entity.
Illness: the sufferer’s perception of the individual experience of
suffering; may occur with or without disease being identified;
culturally embedded, subjective definition given to suffering by the
patient, and to behavior in which it is expressed.
Disease: a condition that is objectively identified with a medical
label or diagnostic name, based on externally established signs;
may be identified with or without there being a subjective
perception of illness by the individual; objective condition or
pathology as determined by a medical professional.
Sickness: the individual or group subjective experience of suffering
Suffering: the subjective, usually more chronic, condition of
affliction or painful existence; broader than sickness, the existential
experience of life of hardship and difficulty, may be permanent
human condition, often accounted for in religion and wisdom
literature.
(all definitions from Janzen 2002)
6. Personal account partners
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Same groups of 3
Share what your personal account is about
Look at the definitions of Medical
Anthropology:
– How can you focus your personal account in
order to look at it through Med Anth eyes?
– What questions would you ask to make it a Med
Anth problem?
Medical Anthropolgy is:
Janzen’s
 Study of health, illness, and
healing across the range of
human societies and over
the course of human
experience
 Emphasis on behaviors,
ideas, and resources.





Includes:
patterns of disease
Ways to understands and
respond
community’s access to
resources
Meaning of the signs of illness
and suffering
Last week’s
 Study of
 Context of health, disease
and healing
 Multiple expressions of hd-h
 Ways in which people
organize to take care of hd-h
What do you find useful of each?
What are their weaknesses?
End of today’s class