ABSTRACT

Now in its fourth edition, Exploring Medical Anthropology provides a concise and engaging introduction to medical anthropology. It presents competing theoretical perspectives in a balanced fashion, highlighting points of conflict and convergence. Concrete examples and the author’s personal research experiences are utilized to explain some of the discipline’s most important insights, such as that biology and culture matter equally in the human experience of disease and that medical anthropology can help to alleviate human suffering.

The text has been thoroughly updated for the fourth edition, including fresh case studies and a new chapter on drugs. It contains a range of pedagogical features to support teaching and learning, including images, text boxes, a glossary, and suggested further reading.

chapter 1|12 pages

What’s So Cultural about Disease?

chapter 3|12 pages

Recognizing Biological, Social, and Cultural Interconnections

Evolutionary and Ecological Perspectives on a Cholera Epidemic

chapter 4|13 pages

Expanding the Vision of Medical Anthropology

Critical and Interpretive Views of the Cholera Epidemic

chapter 5|11 pages

The Global Petri Dish

chapter 6|17 pages

Healers and the Healing Professions

chapter 7|9 pages

Drugs

A Fieldwork Encounter with Drugs

chapter 8|16 pages

Applying Medical Anthropology

chapter 9|15 pages

Anthropology and Medical Ethics

chapter 10|5 pages

A Look Back and a Glance Ahead