Document Detail


The gift of health: Socialist medical practice and shifting material and moral economies in post-Soviet Cuba.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  20092049     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
Drawing on ethnographic data collected over 13 months of fieldwork in family doctor clinics in Havana from 2004 to 2005, I examine the shifting moral and material economies of Cuban socialist medical practice. In both official ideology and in daily practice, the moral economy of ideal socialist medicine is based on an ethos of reciprocal social exchange-that is, the gift-that informs not only doctors' relationships with the Cuban state and with individual patients but also the state's policies of international medical service to developing nations. The social and economic upheavals after the fall of t Soviet Union, however, have compelled both the state and individual doctors to operate in a new local and global economy. The gift remains the central metaphor of Cuban medical practice. Nonetheless, as ideologies and practices of gifting and reciprocity encounter an emerging market economy, gifts--whether on the level of the state policies of international humanism or in patient-doctor relations--are open to new significations that highlight the shifting material and moral economies of post-Soviet Cuba.
Authors:
Elise Andaya
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Medical anthropology quarterly     Volume:  23     ISSN:  0745-5194     ISO Abbreviation:  Med Anthropol Q     Publication Date:  2009 Dec 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2010-01-22     Completed Date:  2010-02-18     Revised Date:  -    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  8405037     Medline TA:  Med Anthropol Q     Country:  United States    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  357-74     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University at Albany, State University of New York, USA.
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Ambulatory Care Facilities
Cuba
Delivery of Health Care / economics*,  ethics*
Humans
Physicians
Public Policy
Socialism / economics*
USSR
Venezuela

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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