SOCI 202 Spring 2010 Instructor: Deniz Yükseker MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY SOCI 202 Spring 2010 Instructor: Deniz Yükseker

The field of medical anthropoloy An interdisciplinary field that studies social and cultural aspects of health and illness The processes of naming an illness, describing it to others, determining its cause, and acting to remedy it are determined by cultural norms and expectations. “A health care system”: a system of symbolic meanings pertaining to health, illness and healing that is anchored in particular arrangements of social institutions and patterns of interpersonal interactions” (Arthur Kleinman)

Health care systems A health care system is complex Different choices, changing explanations, new healing methods, social criticism of individuals’ choices, ways to reject failed methods

Contemporary medical anthropologists critize previous studies on health care systems for not paying attention to individuals ethnocentrism Western biomedical-centrist bias

Medical anthropologists emphasize that disparate healing practices may be integrated into a coherent health care system there are always power structures involved in a health care system

Case study Sylvia Wing Önder’s ethnography of healing practices in Medreseönü, Ordu Belief in nazar, ways to remove nazar Traditional healers : bone-setting (kırıkçı-çıkıkçı) Modern healthcare based on biomedical sciences

Bone-setting Where did Zeynep teyze learn how to set bones? What are her techniques? What is the relationship between her healing practices and the modern medical establishment? What does the state think of kırıkçı-çıkıkçıs?

Bone-setting Is traditional bone-setting a “professional” practice? What are the locals attitudes towards bone-setters? Why do you think this practice still exists in rural Ordu? .. and everywhere else in Turkey?

Clinical medicine How does the local health clinic (sağlık ocağı) operate? A medical doctor, nurses and midwives

What are the power relations observable in the health clinic. e. g What are the power relations observable in the health clinic? e.g. the signs on the walls How do the healthcare personnel approach the locals? How do the locals approach the healthcare personnel?

The clash between the biomedical clinical model of illness and traditional beliefs and healing practices: What causes diseases according to traditional beliefs? What causes illness according to the biomedical model?

Health clinic as representing the state Vaccinations Maternal healthcare Emphasis on reducing infant mortality Emphasis on hygene and cleanliness Emphasis on forming good social relations between healthcare personnel and villagers

What are attitudes about vaccination What are attitudes about vaccination? Why are villagers disinclined to take their babies to vaccination?

Local attitudes about the quality of healthcare in hospitals

Spiritual healers in South Africa and the AIDS epidemic How to make sense of the film “Sangoma”? 300,000 traditional healers, only 23,000 medical doctors! Why does traditional healing get in the way of modern healthcare?

South Africa Population: 44 million Per capita income: USD 13,000 Infant mortality rate: 60 per thousand Ratio of population living below poverty line: 50 percent Life expectancy at birth: HIV/AIDs adult prevalence rate: 21.5 percent (5.3 million people living with HIV/AIDS)