Offerings
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AN3004:03

Medical Anthropology

Cairns, External

HECS Band 1

26 hours lectures, 12 hours tutorials. Semester 1 (Cairns campus); Semester 2 on-line delivery using LearnJCU (External).

Staff:

Dr D Mitchell (Cairns campus).

Using different analytical approaches, this subject explores the variety of medical systems human groups have developed through time to maintain the health of individuals and communities. Emphasis is placed on ecological and evolutionary approaches to health. The Western medical or biomedical paradigm is situated philosophically and historically in order to view it as a culturally and ideologically informed knowledge system to be considered from a comparative anthropological viewpoint. Case materials are drawn from Indigenous Australia, Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas.

Learning Objectives:

locate the development of the Western and non-Western systems within a broader ecological framework in which health systems are seen to be measures of societies' adaptation to their environments;

extend this 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, including issues associated with applied anthropology and social development.

Assessment:

Cairns by tutorial participation (20%); class tests or on-line exercises (30%); essay (50%).

External by on-line exercises (50%); essay (50%).