ABSTRACT
Medical anthropology has emerged over the past 30 years as one of the most important subfields of anthropology, and the one most directly relevant
What is anthropology? 11 Medical anthropology 11 The concept of ‘culture’ 12 Research methodologies 13
Anthropology and cultural psychiatry 14 Limitations of anthropology 14 References 15
to cultural psychiatry. It can be defined as:
The study of how people in different cultures and social groups explain the causes of illhealth, the types of treatment they believe in, and to whom they turn if they do get ill. It is also the study of how these beliefs and behaviours relate to biological, psychological and social changes in the human organism – in both health and disease. It is the study of human suffering, and the steps that people take to explain and relieve that suffering.
