© 2014 Dmitry V. MIKHEL
2014 — №2 (8)
Key words: medical anthropology, health, medicine, society, culture, social strata, public health, inequalities.
Abstract:
Within this course we analyzed anthropological approaches to understand the problems of health and medicine in the context of society and culture. We discuss various forms of human experience, discourses, knowledge and practices related to health in different societies and among various social strata within each society. The training course was based on the idea that human health is both a physical and symbolic phenomenon, it is formed socially, is determined culturally and at the same time is associated with a certain historical moment.
During the course students were invited to read 4 books:
- Robert A. Hahn (Ed.), 1999, Anthropology in Public Health: Bridging Differences in Culture and Society.
- Paul Farmer, 2001, Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues.
- Margaret Lock & Mark Nichter (Eds.), 2002, New Horizons in Medical Anthropology: Essays in Honour of Charles Leslie.
- Susan Reynolds Whyte, Sjaak van der Geest, Anita Hardon (Eds.), 2003, Social Lives of Medicines.
The students were required to prepare three reports, one small field research project and critical reviews on two of these books. The evaluation of the field work was performed on the basis of student’s experience and quality of observation; the evaluation of the review of the book – based on the fact of reading, knowledge of the material, quality of the proposed statements, organization of their own theses and their presentation. The evaluation of each element of the work gave 30% of the total score. Attendance of classes and participation in discussions – another 10%.
The rest of the program translated from the original source of the University of Lethbridge public web-site can be read in the Russian version of the Journal.