ANTH 271
Medicine, Pathology, and Power: An Ethnographic View Fall 2015
Division II
This is not the current course catalog

How do medical anthropologists examine and interpret disease and illness between and within societies across the globe today, in order to elucidate the biosocial determinants of health and health-seeking behaviors? We are particularly interested in how medical anthropologists employ ethnographic techniques such as participant observation and reflexive interviewing that James Clifford once described as “deep hanging out”. Through experiential and phenomenological inquiries, we will investigate how structural violence produces systemic health inequalities in response to the workings of power and other social factors, while paying particular attention to the most marginalized and vulnerable populations or individuals in society. After reading a selection of medical ethnographies, students will pursue their own individual, fieldwork-based projects in the Berkshires. Our goal is a better understanding of the limits and strengths of ethnographic inquiry as we explore and experience the challenges of medical anthropology research including informed consent, access, and sensitivity to our informants’ explanatory models.