© 2013 V.I. Kharitonova
2013 – № 2 (6)
Key words: medical anthropology, association, symposium, medical anthropologists, medical ethnography, medical ethnology, sociology of medicine, board of association
Abstract: The author talks about the event of organization of the Association of medical anthropologists of Russia that took place at the end on the 1st All-Russian scientific symposium “Medical anthropology in Russia and abroad”, on the 5th of July, 2013. The entity was legally registered on the 5th of November, 2013. The author lists the founding members of AMA and members of the Board of Association, the main research areas and principles of enrolment of new members.
First university lectures in medical anthropology, as well as the first research teams appeared in Russia at the beginning of 2000s. The research areas of medical anthropology at that time were studied by specialists form different disciplinary frameworks. Social anthropologists who had been called ethnographers in the Soviet Union were focusing on the study of folk medicines. Following sociologists who had shaped the sociology of medicine in Russia in 1990s, they started to expand the area of their research shifting from medical ethnography to medical anthropology. This led to organization of a specialized symposium in 2013 and consolidation of specialists in the form of Association of medical anthropologists (AMA).
The first meeting of the founders of AMA took place on September, 5th in 2013; the legal registration of the entity happened in Moscow on November, 5th, 2013. AMA is defined as a Russian non-commercial organization (with a right of foreigners to join) aimed at uniting specialists in medical anthropology, that is understood as a broad interdisciplinary research area covering issues of health and health maintenance in socio-cultural and bio-cultural contexts, various historical and cultural forms of human experience related to disease risks, different healing systems of past and present. The members of the Association, as was decided during the first meeting, can be both social and natural scientists, including philosophers, psychologists, medical practitioners.
The composition of the first Board of Association of medical anthropologists is as follows:
President of AMA – Kharitonova Valentina
Vice-president of AMA – Mikhel Dmitry
Vice-president of AMA – Khayrullin Radik
Buldakova Julia
Goloviznin Mark
Isaeva Julia
Kirilenko Elena
Kopeliovich Galina
Kurlenkova Aleksandra
Lekhtsier Vitaly
Pavlova Lyudmila
Topoev Valery
Chief operating officer of AMA – Khusnetdinova Aygul.
Please read the full version of the article in Russian.