ANTH 1120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Nonverbal Communication, Ethnomedicine, Narrative
8 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
ANTH 1120
January 29, 2018
When is a Disease a Disease?
Do all cultures construct disease and illness in the same way?
In the western world:
● No distinction between illness and disease
● Import to understand difference between these terms, so that we can understand the
health systems and healing beliefs of non western societies
● Western medicine itself can be classified as a ethno-medicine
Arthur Kleinman’s Definitions
● In biomedical paradigm; refers to underlying pathology biologically defined. The
illness seen in terms of a medical disorder.
● Arthur Kleinman: first to start articulating these terms
● A biophysical reality: something that can be measured and quantified
● Objectively measurable pathological conditions of the body: can turn the patient’s
sign into a symptom
● International Classification of Diseases (ICD) to be able to distinguish one disease
from another to have uniform standardization and to know the origin of a disease
● The way in which mental health disorders are calculated, quantified and categorized
● Medical Professional perspective
Illness
● Subjective experience of their symptoms (of feeling unwell)
● Can manifestation of physical symptoms in addition to experiences of changes
involving feelings, ideas, values, languages, and nonverbal communication, symbolic
behaviour.
● What the patient brings/presents to the doctor
● Patient’s perspective (first-person perspective)
● Medical doctors dismiss the illness narrative because they consider it to be bias and
subjective, yet there is a richness of knowledge in the illness narrative; medical
doctors need to pay attention to this.
● Individual perspective
● Larger social context is removed from the equation: power relations, access to
resources
The Anthropology of Sickness
● Sickness: process/path by which disease and illness are socialized. The context of
disease and illness.
● Health is not just the absence of disease
● Encompasses the social and cultural constructions of a condition as defined by a
given society. It is also the social role adopted by the individual; a role negotiated
within a given society
● Societal perspective
● The rules and ways in which society constructs the ‘sick’ role
Document Summary
Import to understand difference between these terms, so that we can understand the health systems and healing beliefs of non western societies. Western medicine itself can be classified as a ethno-medicine. In biomedical paradigm; refers to underlying pathology biologically defined. The illness seen in terms of a medical disorder. Arthur kleinman: first to start articulating these terms. A biophysical reality: something that can be measured and quantified. Objectively measurable pathological conditions of the body: can turn the patient"s sign into a symptom. International classification of diseases (icd) to be able to distinguish one disease from another to have uniform standardization and to know the origin of a disease. The way in which mental health disorders are calculated, quantified and categorized. Subjective experience of their symptoms (of feeling unwell) Can manifestation of physical symptoms in addition to experiences of changes involving feelings, ideas, values, languages, and nonverbal communication, symbolic behaviour. What the patient brings/presents to the doctor.
