AN2004:04
Medical Anthropology
Townsville, Cairns
HECS Band 1
26 hours lectures, 12 hours tutorials. Semester 2.
Staff: Dr D Mitchell (Cairns campus).
Using ecological, epidemiological, historical and structural-functional perspectives, this subject surveys the variety of medical systems human groups have developed through time to maintain the health of individuals. These perspectives are then contrasted with more current approaches to medical anthropology, including critical medical anthropology, the anthropology of the body, the anthropology of emotion and other poststructuralist approaches to health systems.
Learning Objectives:
- locate the development of the Western biomedical system and ethnomedical systems within a broader ecological framework in which health systems are seen to be measures of societies’ adaptation to their environments;
- extend this ecological/functional perspective into a more meaningful conceptual framework which takes into account cultural differences between human groups;
- understand the variation in disease patterns, and social responses to them, between human groups by reference to the cultural basis of the human condition;
- apply these perspectives to current issues in health across cultures, with particular reference to Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Papua New Guinea peoples.
Assessment by tutorial presentation, participation and paper (20%); essay (40%); end-of-semester examination or second essay (40%).