Anthropology › Section Q · Medical anthropology › Topic Q.1
What is medical anthropology?
Everyone gets sick, but what sickness means, who is blamed, who heals and what counts as getting better differ from place to place. Medical anthropology studies health, illness and healing as products of biology, culture and power together. It describes healing systems; it does not recommend treatments.
In this topic
- Health between biology and culture
- Defining health
- Disease, illness and sickness
- Worked example: when the three come apart
- Early roots: Rivers
- Explaining misfortune: the Azande
- Bodies shaped by environment
- After 1945: a field takes shape
- Worked example: kuru and the four fields
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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