ANTH/HSERV 475 Perspectives in Medical Anthropology University of WashingtonAlejandro Cerón Office: Denny Hall 417 Office hours: Wed 11 am -13 pm Week 5: Wed, 10/25/2010

Outline Today’s Goals: Link notions of modernity to Med Anth 1.Oral presentations 1.Connie Chon, Christina Scaduto, Kryspin Gietkowski 2.Guidelines for Wednesday discussion 3.Feedback website project 4.Modernity, modernization 5.Traditional vrs modern 6.Paradigm, episteme 7.Ideology, culture, hegemony

Mammography guidelines Discussion goal: identify “patterns of mammography guidelines acceptance” Re-visit the article “patterns of vaccination acceptance” Apply explanatory perspectives as a starting point Add anything else we know/think/feel about this Groups (explanatory perspectives)Students (what insights can we get from borrowing these perspective and applying it?) 1. Variations in rational vaccination useKelsey, Jordan, Alicia, Amran 2. Collective decisions by vaccination usersAnnie, Ameer, Audrey, 3. Trust in competent providerChelsey, Elysia, Connie, Kristen, Christina, Danny 4. Risk perceptionSujata, Melinda, Natalie, Sierra, Kaitlan 5. State control over people’s bodiesAnne, His-Wen, Victoria, David

Patterns of vaccination acceptance Streefland, Pieter, A.M.R. Chowdhury, and Pilar Ramos-Jimenez (1999) Importance of context Gradations of acceptance/non-acceptance Non-acceptance Mothers are willing to go, but unable to do so Mothers just refuse to go (inadequacy of vaccination services) Mothers question the need for vaccination Explanatory perspectives Variations in rational vaccination use Collective decisions by vaccination users Trust in competent provider Risk perception State control over people’s bodies

Summary of assessment of 1 st blog entry CriteriaPresentAbsen t 1. At least one image Text explaining image Class reading Outside source Explanation of link Clarity and coherence Spelling, grammar, structure Ability to relate class concepts to outside15 1 Scores given31 Missing scores1 Mean18.16 Median18 Mode17, 18, 20 Min16 Max20 Std. Dev.1.37

Let’s think about the link between culture and modernity; traditional and modern (link)link

From last day… CultureModern/TraditionalWhat else…? -Individual -Culture extinction -Hallucinogen -Spirit of plants -Silly -Conformity/acceptance -Dynamic -Cultural values -Nele is not modern -Nele is not respected -Same plants, different knowledge/technology -“normal” -Valued -Traditional knowledge and modern diseases -Interest/respect for the other -Non traditional environment -Who owns knowledge -Both interested in sharing -Money -Power

Common definitions (M-W) Modern of, relating to, or characteristic of the present or the immediate past : contemporary involving recent techniques, methods, or ideas : up-to-date Traditional of information, beliefs, and customs handed down by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions

Modern or traditional?

What are the implications of calling something “modern” or “traditional”? Connotations of “modern medicine”? Connotations of “traditional medicine”?

Watch and take free notes Play pump (2006, 9 min) (2010, 25 min) Troubled water websitewebsite

Statistical imagination Chapter 11. Statistical imagination (p. 265) Illusion of decontextualization (p. 266) “Epidemiologists would have us believe that medical statistics are politically neutral reflections of disease distribution because they use scientific, standardized procedures and case definitions…” (p. 266) Culture of no culture

Chapter 12 The same kind of problems shown for the Venezuelan public health officials happens at a global scale “The sanitary revolution narrative pretends to be egalitarian and inclusive […] but notions of sanitary citizenship produce exclusion and hierarchicalization.” (p. 296)

Chapter 13: Virulent aftermath Globalized and localized people Problems with the use of modernity (p. 321) Achieving social justice… (p. 327)

Modernity The view of social science theory and social ideology whereby society should or does progress toward rational, individualized, free market orientation, and away from traditional, collective, and irrational perspectives. (Janzen 2002) From Briggs Ch. 6  Understandings of modernity are socially constructed  Situated and contingent character of modernity and modern hygienic norms (p. 152) We have never been “modern” The assumption of modernity blinds us

Ideology of Modernity “Process of cultural and socioeconomic change, whereby developing societies acquire some of the characteristics of Western industrialized societies” (Havilland 1993). Four processes Technological development: from traditional to scientific knowledge and techniques Agricultural development: from subsistence farming to commercial farming Industrialization: emphasis on inanimate forms of energy to power machines Urbanization:

Ideology of Modernity Other changes: Political parties and electoral machinery Bureaucracy Literacy increases Religion less important Traditional rights and duties connected with kinship are altered or eliminated Stratification and mobility Structural differentiation Integrative mechanisms Tradition: in a modernizing society, old cultural practices, which may oppose new forces differentiation and integration

“Castas” in Colonial Latin America

Historical materialism

Theory of Modernization

Demographic transition

Epidemiological transition

Common pattern Some factual information + Ideology of modernity = Wrong conclusions

Briggs, p. 321 Problems with the use of modernity: Fallible strategy Process of affirming one’s own modernity by denying it to others reproduces social inequality Rhetoric of modernity: increasingly obsolete “It may be that the creation of multiple, interrelated modernities in Latin America goes hand in hand with the ongoing production of alternative traditionalities that not only inform but also shape their modern counterparts”

Watch and take free notes Play pump (2006, 9 min) (2010, 25 min) Troubled water websitewebsite

Ideology-culture-hegemony One view, based on Antonio Gramsci and Raymond Williams (“Cultural Marxism”) Jean and John Comaroff ideologyhegemony Political manifestations of culture