A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities

A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities brings together essays that represent the seven key themes that make up today s vibrant field of medical anthropology: the theoretical legacy; phenomenologies of illness and narrative, body and experience; biological citizenship; the biotechnical embrace; the new medical biosciences; global health and medicine; and postcolonial power relations and humanitarian challenges of the contemporary world.

In their introductions, the editors argue that on the one hand emergent realities challenge medical anthropology to change many of its practices and theories; on the other hand, a vital set of theoretical traditions provide comparative moral compasses for current health dilemmas. In this ground–breaking new reader, the contributors demonstrate how medical anthropology is on the cutting edge of new integrative work in anthropology, global health, and the life sciences.

Acknowledgments.

About the Editors.

Introduction.

Part I: Antecedents.

Introduction.

1. Massage in Melanesia (W. H. R. Rivers).

2. The Notion of Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate Events (E. E. Evans–Pritchard).

3. Muchona the Hornet, Interpreter of Religion (Victor Turner).

4. The Ojibwa Self and Its Behavioral Environment (Irving A. Hallowell).

5. The Charity Physician (Rudolf Virchow).

6. The Role of Beliefs and Customs in Sanitation Programs (Benjamin Paul).

7. Introduction to Asian Medical Systems (Charles Leslie).

8. Medical Anthropology and the Problem of Belief (Byron J. Good).

Part II: Illness and Narrative, Body and Experience.

Introduction.

9. Medicine′s Symbolic Reality: On a Central Problem in the Philosophy of Medicine (Arthur M. Kleinman).

10. Elements of Charismatic Persuasion and Healing (Thomas J. Csordas).

11. The Thickness of Being: Intentional Worlds, Strategies of Identity, and Experience Among Schizophrenics (Ellen Corin).

12. The Concept of Therapeutic "Emplotment" (Cheryl Mattingly).

13. Myths/Histories/Lives (Michael Jackson).

14. The State Construction of Affect: Political Ethos and Mental Health Among Salvadoran Refugees (Janis Hunter Jenkins).

15. Struggling Along: The Possibilities for Experience Among the Homeless Mentally Ill (Robert Desjarlais).

Part III: Governmentalities and Biological Citizenship.

Introduction.

16. Dreaming of Psychiatric Citizenship: A Case Study of Supermax Confinement (Lorna A. Rhodes).

17. Biological Citizenship: The Science and Politics of Chernobyl–Exposed Populations (Adriana Petryna).

18. Human Pharmakon: Symptoms, Technologies, Subjectivities (João Biehl).

19. The Figure of the Abducted Woman: The Citizen as Sexed (Veena Das).

20. Where Ethics and Politics Meet: The Violence of Humanitarianism in France (Miriam Ticktin).

Part IV: The Biotechnical Embrace.

Introduction.

21. The Medical Imaginary and the Biotechnical Embrace: Subjective Experiences of Clinical Scientists and Patients (Mary–Jo DelVecchio Good).

22. Where It Hurts: Indian Material for an Ethics of Organ Transplantation (Lawrence Cohen).

23. "Robin Hood" of Techno–Turkey or Organ Trafficking in the State of Ethical Beings (Aslihan Sanal).

24. Quest for Conception: Gender, Infertility, and Egyptian Medical Traditions (Marcia C. Inhorn).

25. AIDS in 2006: Moving toward One World, One Hope? (Jim Yong Kim and Paul Farmer).

Part V: Biosciences, Biotechnologies.

Introduction.

26. Dr. Judah Folkman′s Decalogue and Network Analysis (Michael M. J. Fischer).

27. Beyond Nature and Culture: Modes of Reasoning in the Age of Molecular Biology and Medicine (Hans–Jörg Rheinberger).

28. Immortality, In Vitro: A History of the HeLa Cell Line (Hannah Landecker).

29. A Digital Image of the Category of the Person (Joseph Dumit).

30. Experimental Values: Indian Clinical Trials and Surplus Health (Kaushik Sunder Rajan).

Part VI: Global Health, Global Medicine.

Introduction.

31. Medical Anthropology and International Health Planning (George M. Foster).

32. Anthropology and Global Health (Craig R. Janes and Kitty K. Corbett).

33. Mot Luuk Problems in Northeast Thailand: Why Women′s Own Health Concerns Matter as Much as Disease Rates (Pimpawun Boonmongkon, Mark Nichter, and Jen Pylypa).

34. The New Malaise: Medical Ethics and Social Rights in the Global Era (Paul Farmer).

35. Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life (Didier Fassin).

Part VII: Postcolonial Disorders.

Introduction.

36. Amuk in Java: Madness and Violence in Indonesian Politics (Byron Good and Mary–Jo DelVecchio Good).

37. The Political Economy of Trauma in Haiti in the Democratic Era of Insecurity (Erica James).

38. Contract of Mutual (In)Difference: Governance and the Humanitarian Apparatus in Contemporary Albania and Kosovo (Mariella Pandolfi).

39. Darfur through a Shoah Lens: Sudanese Asylum Seekers, Unruly Biopolitical Dramas, and the Politics of Humanitarian Compassion in Israel (Sarah S. Willen).

40. The Elegiac Addict: History, Chronicity, and the Melancholic Subject (Angela Garcia).

Index.

Byron J. Good is Professor of Medical Anthropology, Depart­ment of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Professor in the Department of Anthropol­ogy, Harvard University. 

Michael M. J. Fischer is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Sarah S. Willen is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University. She has been an NIMN Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and has taught in the Department of Anthropology, Harvard University.

Mary–Jo DelVecchio Good is Professor of Social Medicine, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and in the Department of Sociology, Harvard University.