Health, Healing and Culture: An Introduction to Medical Anthropology (in English)

COURSE OBJECTIVES:
This English-language course is an introduction to medical anthropology, emphasizing the
literature on health and healing in different cultures. The objectives of the course are to
understand health and healing in social and cultural context, to compare health, illness and
healing in different cultures, and to introduce the theoretical orientations and basic concepts
of medical anthropology. Readings illustrate the different theoretical orientations used by
medical anthropologists and explore topics such as mental health and illness, healers and
healing, disease etiologies, health seeking behavior, child birth across cultures and practical
uses for medical anthropology in health care settings. Case studies from Italy, North America,
Africa, Europe and Latin America illustrate key concepts.

CLASS FORMAT:
Classes will be held twice a week for 80 minutes. Coursework is comprised of lectures, videos,
outside readings and short written assignments, as well as a number of in-class discussions
exploring the role of culture in health and healing.

GRADING:
Students will be evaluated on their ability to articulate and critically apply the terms, concepts
and theories from class and readings verbally, during class discussions, as well as in writing, on
exams and in written assignments. The final grade for the course is compromised of the
following:
Participation 20%
Focus Essays 20%
Midterm Exam 30%
Final Exam 30%

Participation: As many students learn best through interacting with peers and discussing
information from class and readings, this course includes a number of class sessions devoted
to discussion. Students will be expected to listen attentively to others´ views, respectfully
express their own and make meaningful and active contributions to class discussions and
lectures. Your participation is scored during each discussion; as such, being absent from class
on a day in which a discussion is scheduled will incur a 0 for that day?s discussion. Sessions in
which a discussion has been scheduled have been shaded.

In Focus Discussions (10%): These short discussions are designed to help students
think critically about, and articulate, key concepts.
Discussion Sessions (10%): These longer discussions (there are two) are structured
around the book ?The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down?. Students are given a list
of discussion questions beforehand that they should reflect upon before arriving to
class on the day that a discussion is held and should be prepared to contribute
meaningfully.

Focus Essays: These four short, formal analytical essays provide students the opportunity to
articulate and apply, through writing, key terms and concepts from the course. Focus Essays
are 3-5 pages in length, 1.5 spaced, with 12pt Times New Roman font. Each essay should
contain a Bibliography of academic source materials. Essays will be evaluated not only by the
student?s ability to critically apply terms and concepts from the course, but also by the tenets
and principles of formal academic writing and Standard English usage.
Each essay must be submitted electronically prior to the start of class on the day that it is due. Late
assignments will receive a .50 penalty (e.g., from 9.0 to 8.5) on the first day and another .50
penalty on the second. Assignments will not be accepted after 2 days.
Midterm and Final Exams: The exams will include a mixture of multiple choice, True/False,
short answer and short essay questions. Students must demonstrate that they have mastered
the theories, concepts and terms from lecture, class discussions, videos and readings.

COURSE MATERIALS:
Required textbook(s):
- Brown, Peter J. (2009). Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. 2nd edition.
Columbus, OH: McGraw-Hill Humanities.
- Dettwyler, Katherine A. (1993). Dancing Skeletons. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
- Joralemon, Donald (1999) Exploring Medical Anthropology. Needham Heights,MA: Allyn &
Bacon.

Other resources:
- Taylor, Janelle S. (2003). The story catches you and you fall down: Tragedy, ethnography and
?cultural competence?. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 17(2):159-181.
- Good, Byron J. and Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good (1993). ?Learning Medicine?: The constructing
of medical knowledge at Harvard Medical School. In Knowledge, Power and Practice: The
anthropology of medicine and everyday life. Lindenbaum, Shirley and Margaret Lock (eds.). Pp.
81-107. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

COURSE CONTENT:
Session Topic Assignments
1 Course Introduction

2 Intro to Anthropology, The four fields

3 Culture
? As adaptation
? As a system of meaning

4 Culture
? As hegemony
? In Focus discussion: Cultural relativism
Due today: Focus Essay #1
Read for today:
? Cultural Relativism, Pp. 1-9.
? Majumder, Why rural sexual
violence remains rife in India.

5 Medical Anthropology
? Historical development
Read for today:
? Joraleman, What?s So Cultural
about Disease, Pp. 1-15.

6 Theoretical Perspectives
? Biocultural approaches to health and healing in
Anthropology
Read for today:
? Eaton, Shostak and Konner, Stone
Agers in the Fast Lane, 21-33.

7 Theoretical Perspectives
? Cultural approaches to health and healing in
Anthropology
Read for today:
? Brown, Cultural Adaptations to
Endemic Malaria in Sardinia, Pp.
79-92.

8 Case study: Anthropological perspectives on
cholera
? In Focus discussion: Comparing and contrasting
critical and ecological perspectives
Read for today:
? Joralman, Expanding the Vision
of Medical Anthropology, Pp. 45-
59.

9 Ethnomedical systems
? Traditional and non-Western medical systems
Read for today:
? Brown, Dark Side of the Shaman,
Pp. 170-173.

10 Ethnomedical systems
? Biomedicine
? Partially professionalized medical systems
? Folk and alternative medicine in the U.S.
Read for today:
? Good and DelVecchi Good,
?Learning Medicine?: The
constructing of medical
knowledge at Harvard Medical
School, Pp. 81-107.
? Miner, Body Ritual among the
Nacirema, Pp. 503-507.

11 Non-Western Disease etiologies
? Cultural models and schemata
? Personalistic and naturalistic etiologies
Read for today:
? Foster, Disease Etiologies in
Non-Western Medical Systems,
Pp. 110-117.

12 Discussion Session
? The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down
Due today: Focus Essay #2
Read for today:
? Fadima, The Spirit Catches you
and you Fall Down, Pp. 1-92.

13 Non-Western Disease etiologies
? Navajo Medicine

14 Midterm Exam

15 Healers and Healing Professions
? What is healing?
? Illness, disease and the role of the medical
practitioner
? Authority and healers
Read for today:
? Joralemon, Healers and the
Healing Professions, Pp 61-79.
? West, Farmer and Kleinman,
AIDS as Human Suffering, Pp.
333-342.

16 Health Seeking Behavior in Context
? Hierarchies of resort
? Case study: The cultural context of malaria in
the United Republic of Tanzania
Read for today:
? Clark, Gender and Generation in
Poor Women?s Household Health
Production Experiences, Pp. 158-
168.

17 Reproductive Health
? Childbirth cultures: Exploring childbirth crossculturally
Read for today:
? Fadima, The Spirit Catches you
and you Fall Down, Pp. 107-153.

18 Reproductive Health
? The body politic: Women?s bodies in
biomedicine
? Case study: Childbirth in Spain and Sweden
Read for today:
? Martin, Medical Metaphors of
Women?s Bodies: Menstruation
and menopause, Pp. 345-356.

19 Culture, Illness and Mental Health
? Case study: Susto in Latin America
Read for today:
? Kleinman, Are Psychiatric
Disorders Different in Different
Cultures?, Pp. 185-196.

20 Culture, Illness and Mental Health
? Video: ?When Medicine Got it Wrong?
? In Focus discussion: Social and political
contexts of biomedicine

21 Communication in Clinical Settings
? Physician and patient roles
? Cross-cultural miscommunication
Read for today:
? Fadima, The Spirit Catches you
and you Fall Down, Pp. 171-224.

22 Medical Practitioners, Anthropology and the
Western System of Care
? Cultural competency in health care
? Problems with ethnic classifications in the U.S.
Due today : Focus Essay #3
Read for today:
? Harwood, The Hot-Cold Theory
of Disease, Pp. 251-258

23 Medical Practitioners, Anthropology and the
Western System of Care
? The LEARN model
? Patient-centered care versus medicalization of
ethnicity
? In Focus discussion: Cultural competency, the
LEARN model and the case of Lia Lee
Read for today:
? Berlin and Fowkes, Jr. A
Teaching Framework for Cross-
Cultural Health Care, Pp. 303-
309.

24 Discussion Session
? The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down
Read for today :
? Fadima, The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down, Pp. 250-288.
? Taylor, The Story Catches you
and you Fall Down, Pp. 159-181.

25 Applied Medical Anthropology
? Framing illness and disease: Deviance, risk or
context?
? Case study: Project PHRESH.comm
Read for today:
? Joraleman, Applying Medical
Anthropology, Pp. 81-100.

26 Applied Medical Anthropology
? International and Public Health
? In Focus discussion: Medical Anthropology and
medical school curriculum
Due: Focus Essay #4

Final Exam