1. MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Social Anthropology Instructor: Deniz Yükseker
Spring 2014
Koç University

2. The field of medical anthropoloy
An interdisciplinary field that studies social, cultural and biological aspects of health, illness and healing 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”

3. 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

4. Disease and illness
Medical anthropologists distinguish between disease and illness Disease: clinical or biological aspects of a medical condition Illness: personal experience of a medical condition in terms of suffering

5. Two case studies
Leprosy on the Ganges Global organ trade and organ transplantations

6. Case study 1
People with leprosy in the holy city of Banaras Differentiation between Contagiousness of the disease and Contagiousness of the social stigma

7. People with leprosy are discriminated against
Hiding and denial of the disease
Progression of the disease
Somatic symptoms of the disease  pain
Social suffering
Social stigma intensifies physical stigma

8. Case study 2
Global organ trade and organ transplantation (This reading is excluded from the final exam, but I am keeping the slides for your information)

9. Global organ trade Transformation of the body under globalization
Human organs as commodities
Global spread of organ transplant technology creates a “scarcity” in human organs

10. Organ trade as a case of globalization
Flows of commodities (organs)
Flows of people (donors and recepients)
Flows of technology (organ transplantation technology)
Globalization: intensification of global flows of commodities, people, money, ideeas

11. As a result of the global trade in organs, meanings shift:
What is the meaning of death?
What does embodiment mean?
To whom does a dead body belong?
What does scarcity of organs mean?

12. Is organ trade against social justice and equity?
Should organ trade be banned or regulated?
What about transplantation of limbs?