Course overview
This course develops a cross-cultural understanding of health, healing, beliefs about the body, and theories of illness - cultural, social and bio-medical. It critically examines the way in which medical beliefs and practices are socially constructed. Specific topics covered will include: cultural understandings of the mind/body, illness as symbol and metaphor, healers and their roles, institutional responses to disease, and the interaction between different health systems. Through the lens of medical anthropology the course asks students to contemplate their own assumptions about health and illness, and how each of these are 'treated' in a range of social and cultural settings.
Course learning outcomes
- To develop an understanding of key concepts and methods in medical anthropology
- To prompt students to engage respectfully in contemporary debates that relate to health and healthcare
- To introduce and develop students’ abilities to locate health and illness in historical, social and cultural contexts
- To analyse biomedicine and other medical systems as cultural phenomenon, and to critically analyse notions of health and medicine in our own society and our own lives
- Develop students’ research, digital and analytical skills on a topic of interest in the field of medical anthropology
Degree list
The following degrees include this course