ANT 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Sui Generis, Spirit Possession, Medical Anthropology
8 May 2017
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Document Summary
Study of the cultural conditions concerning healing, illness and well-being/health. Not only the absence of disease and infirmity, but complete mental, physical and social well-being. Very nature of illness & well-being are dependent on worldview. How people deal with suffering and disease is cultural. A group of people living together whose interactions are patterned in regular ways. Organism=living thing made up of separate and unequal parts, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Sui generis=born into it, die out of it. People cannot get access to fresh foods. Spirit can be unlocked and let loose. Belief in the manipulation of the spirit world. Set of symbolic and repetitive social practices set apart from the everyday that serve as the socially sanctioned way of managing change. Periodic life cycle rites that renew the social order. Society=an organism sui generis (of its own creation) Born into it, die out of it.
