Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to provide the emergence of critical medical anthropology historically and theoretically, its critique, its perspective, and contrast its approach with contemporary alternatives within the discipline. It discusses a model, first introduced in 1986, for understanding various levels of complexity within the health/treatment domain. The book deals with the macro social level and examines through the intermediate-social, micro-social and individual levels. It examines the potential of medical anthropology to navigate the rough waters of cooptation and develop an effective and consequential praxis. Anthropology has long maintained a relationship, varying in character and depth, with that most prominent and imposing brand of healing, the health care system we have come to call scientific or biomedicine. The often penetrating intimacy of the biomedicine/medical anthropology relationship is not especially problematic.