Description
The purpose of this book is to provide an introduction and overview to the critical perspective as it has evolved in medical anthropology over the last ten years. Standing as an opposition approach to conventional medical anthropology, critical medical anthropology has emphasized the importance of political and economy forces, including the exercise of power, in shaping health, disease, illness experience, and health care.
Table of Contents
SECTION A: Orientation
Introduction
Medical Anthropology and its Transformation
The Critical Gaze
Postmodernism Medical Anthropology: A Critique
SECTION B: The Macro-Social Level
Health-Related Issues in Socialist-Oriented Societies: Ideals, Contradictions, and Realities
Studying Up: The Political Economy of Nuclear Regulation
SECTION C: The Intermediate-Social Level
The American Dominative Medical System as a Reflection of Social Relations in the Larger Society
AIDS and the Health Crisis of the U.S. Urban Poor
The Drive for Professionalization in British Osteopathy
SECTION D: The Micro-Social Level
Medical Hegemony, Biomedical Magic, and Folk Medicine: Reproductive Illness among Haitian Women
Prophets and Advisors in African-American Spiritual Churches: Therapy, Palliative, or Opiate?
SECTION E: The Individual Level
Confronting Juan GarcÃa's Drinking Problem: The Demedicalization of Alcoholism
Cure, Care and Control: Agency and the Structure in the Clinical Encounter
SECTION F: Directions
How Critical Can Clinical Anthropology Be?
Critical Praxis in Medical Anthropology
Topic Index
Name Index
