Module 1 - Summary Medical Anthropology: a Biocultural Approach PDF

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Module One Overview ! • Anthropology: ◦ A discipline that investigates the nature of human variation and those aspects of life that are common to all of humanity • Fundamental principles: ◦ Holism: • Taking into account the whole of something • Think about how it relates to a larger context ◦ Cultural relativism: • Taking a culture based on its own criteria instead of looking at it like your own culture ◦ Comparative approach: • Compare different aspects of culture, health, medicine across different spaces to understand the range of human variation ◦ In- depth fieldwork: • Talking to people, spending time with archeological remains or skeletal remains. • Understanding as much as possible in that context • What is medical anthropology? ◦ Anthropological study of health, illness, healthcare, and related topics

◦ No "culture- free" way to study health and disease ◦ No one way to study or think about health and disease ◦ Diverse array of theoretical and applied components • Biocultural perspective: ◦ Holistic approach ◦ Considers social, ecological, and biological aspects of health issues ! ! How Medical Anthropology Changed My Life ! • Dr. Paul Farmer • Medical anthropology course • Didn't have health insurance • Interviewed patients in Duke ER ! ! Catherine Panther- Brick: The Role Fathers Play in Parenting ! • Fathers are often forgotten in interventions and their role in sidelined • Home and hospital based interventions • Levels of which fathers matter: ◦ For the child ◦ For the family (mothers) ◦ For global citizenship (how the child is raised) • Settings, perpetuation of violence

• Methodology: ◦ Review of the literature of interventions ◦ Review of literature with dads on board • Implications: ◦ Not a good idea to sideline the importance of fathers ◦ Review of the policies that engage just the mothers • Redefining the masculinity of men to have better relationships with their partners ◦ Getting rid of harsh parenting • Having men- only workshops to overcome stereotypes to relate to other people • Believe the way we raise our children can lead to peace- building! • Using biology to have men lean towards empathy with their babies • Engaging men to advocate for women ! ! Chapter One: A Biocultural Approach to Medical Anthropology ! • What is Anthropology? ◦ A discipline that investigates the nature and causes of human variation and those aspects of life that are common to all of humanity ◦ Anthropologists want to understand the similarities and differences in

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behavior and biology across cultures and populations Franz Boas: • Looked at behavior, language, biology, and cultural histories (holistic anthropology) • Cultural relativism: ▪ Other cultures must not be evaluated in relation to another judged superior Subfields of anthropology: • Cultural ▪ Study human behavior in the context of societies, their traditions, and institutions • Linguistic ▪ Focus on language • Biological ▪ Concerned with human biology • Archeology ▪ Study the behavior of past civilizations Development of Medical Anthropology Things related to health are collected by all fields Anthropologists hired to look at the "fitness" of men for WWII WHO: hired them to understand and break down cultural barriers George Foster: demonstrated the utility of anthropological knowledge

to enhance the efficacy of any health intervention ◦ Ethnomedicine: • Medical systems with written traditions passed down • What Is Medical Anthropology? ◦ The study of health, illness, healthcare, and related topics from a broad anthropological perspective ◦ Investigates differences in health and disease experience by using a crosscultural approach ◦ Social arrangements, subsistence practices, resources, gender roles, etc. impact how disease is seen • The Culture Concept ◦ Culture: the beliefs, values, practices, and traditions of behavior of a group • Culture is not static ◦ Ethnographic fieldwork: long- term fieldwork in a society • Residing in a community, speaking their language, and participating in daily life as a member of that community ◦ Participant- observation: the participation in, yet detached observance of a group's behavior ◦ Emic perspective: an insider's view (that of the members of a society

◦ Etic viewpoint: that of an outsider, observing behavior as if from a distance and with no prior knowledge about its emic meaning • A Biocultural Perspective ◦ The perspective that considers the social, ecological, and biological aspects of health issues, and how these interact within and across populations ◦ Holistic view of health ◦ Consider the historical processes that have indirectly contributed to current health problems ◦ Focus their analysis on the sociocultural factors affecting health...