Document Detail


The tempering of medical anthropology: troubling natural categories.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  11794872     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
This article reviews an approach in medical anthropology that commenced in the early 1980s and that continues to the present day in which biomedical knowledge and practices are systematically incorporated into anthropological analyses. Discussion then focuses on contributions made by feminists and medical anthropologists to the literature on medicalization and resistance, illustrating how the ethnographic approach has been crucial in critically reconceptualizing and situating these concepts historically and cross-culturally. The concept of local biologies is introduced in the third section of the article in creating the argument that the coproduction of biologies and cultures contributes to embodied experience, which, in turn, shapes discourse about the body. Subjective reporting at menopause provides an illustrative case study of local biologies in action. The final part of the article takes up the question of the moral economy of scientific knowledge. Comparative ethnographic work in intensive care units in Japan and North America reveals how a moral economy is put into practice in connection with brain-dead bodies and the procurement of organs from them. Medical anthropological contributions to policy making about biomedical technologies is briefly considered in closing.
Authors:
M Lock
Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article; Review    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Medical anthropology quarterly     Volume:  15     ISSN:  0745-5194     ISO Abbreviation:  Med Anthropol Q     Publication Date:  2001 Dec 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2002-01-17     Completed Date:  2002-04-04     Revised Date:  2009-11-19    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  8405037     Medline TA:  Med Anthropol Q     Country:  United States    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  478-92     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Department of Social Studies of Medicine, Department of Anthropology, McGill University.
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Anthropology, Cultural / standards,  trends*
Attitude to Health / ethnology*
Bioethics
Evidence-Based Medicine
Female
Feminism*
Genetic Testing
Genetics, Population
Human Body
Humans
Iatrogenic Disease
Menopause
Morals
Sociology, Medical / standards,  trends*

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


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