Medical Anthropology

This course offers an overview of anthropological perspectives on the body, health, sickness and well-being, medicine and healing, and how these notions are embedded in broader social and political processes. Students will learn to think critically about medicine and science as socio-cultural processes within a broader system of knowledge production that affects how the body is treated, healed, modified and protected through different interventions and policies. The course is conceptually divided into 7 interrelated themes. In the first part, we discuss the body as an individual, social and political entity. We reflect on what illness is in different cultures, and how it is understood and treated. Secondly, we critically explore the basic assumptions of biomedicine and examine the emergence of science as historically and culturally situated. Thirdly, we analyse public health and research ethics. The fourth block looks at diseases that are thought to be the result of social or moral disintegration in society, the loss of traditions, religious beliefs or other types of undesirable social change that have led to epidemics. Block five studies interventions on the body or bodily modifications, often in response to social change. Block six explores ethnographic examples on embodied reactions to structural violence, the political economy of global health and so-called health inequalities. Block seven addresses how the food we consume is seen as inter-connected with the well-being of the body and how we ‘care’ for ourselves and others by controlling food intake.

By the end of the course, students will be familiar with the major debates in medical anthropology.

 

We learn best by working together. The learning experience is much more enjoyable and productive if students actively participate by asking questions, discussing readings, bringing in personal examples and relating theory to practice and vice versa. The weekly reading is mandatory as it gives you a more indepth understanding of the debates in anthropology. The weekly classes are therefore structured as follows: I lecture about the given topic for about half the time and students are invited to present readings and discuss aspects of the theme or the reading they are interested in for the other half. Group presentations are evaluated.

Références, bibliographie et lectures recommandées

variables selon les années

Contacts

Sarah.ONeill@ulb.be

Campus

Solbosch

Méthode(s) d'évaluation

• Travail personnel
• Examen écrit
• Présentation orale

Travail personnel

Examen écrit

• Examen à livre ouvert

• Question ouverte à développement long

Présentation orale

Construction de la note (en ce compris, la pondération des notes partielles)

Langue(s) d'évaluation

• français