ANTH 1220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Ethnomedicine, Traditional Medicine, Medical Anthropology

• School: University of Manitoba
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTH 1220
• Professor: Kathleen Buddle

Document Summary

One of the recent areas of study in anthropology. 5 major areas of interest are: biological and social factors in disease promotion, ethnomedicine, illness + healing as set of meaning (interpretive or symbolic approach, critical medical anthropology, clinical medical anthropology. Also, they are interested in studying ethnomedicine. Ethnomedicine or also known as cross-cultural health systems. It expands beyond medicine and focuses on new topics like anthropology of the body, culture and disability, and change in indigenous or traditional healing systems, especially change resulting from the effect of globalization. All non-weste(cid:396)(cid:374) (cid:373)edi(cid:272)i(cid:374)e as (cid:862)folk(cid:863) o(cid:396) (cid:862)popula(cid:396)(cid:863) i(cid:374) (cid:272)o(cid:374)t(cid:396)ast to (cid:862)s(cid:272)ie(cid:374)tifi(cid:272)(cid:863) o(cid:396) (cid:862)p(cid:396)ofessio(cid:374)al(cid:863: the early meaning of ethnomedicine is ethnocentric because western medicine is an ethnomedical system too, so its bound to western culture and its values. Medical anthropologist uses a model called disease/ illness dichotomy to organize many cross-cultural labels and perceptions. Disease in the disease/illness dichotomy model, a biological health problem that occurred globally or universal.