Medical Anthropology Quarterly: International Journal for the Analysis of Health
Medical Anthropology Quarterly: International Journal for the Analysis of Health publishes research and theory in the field of medical anthropology. This field is broadly taken to include all inquiries into health, disease, illness, and sickness in human individuals and populations that are undertaken from the holistic and cross-cultural perspective distinctive of anthropology as a discipline -- that is, with an awareness of species' biological, cultural, linguistic, and historical uniformity and variation. It encompasses studies of ethnomedicine, epidemiology, maternal and child health, population, nutrition, human development in relation to health and disease, health-care providers and services, public health, health policy, and the language and speech of health and health care. The purpose of the journal is to stimulate debate on and development of ideas and methods in medical anthropology and to explore the relationships of medical anthropology to both health practice and the parent discipline of anthropology.
AnthroSource has MAQ and its predecessor, Medical Anthropology Newsletter. Coverage extends from 1972 through 2007.
MAQ and Medical Anthropology Newsletter are also indexed online at JSTOR. Coverage extends from 1983 to 1995.
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Medical Anthropology Quarterly Vol. 22, No. 1: March 2008
articles
Managing the Unmanageable: Elderly Russian Jewish Émigrés and the Biomedical Culture of Diabetes Care
Amy Borovoy & Janet Hine
In this article, we examine the apparent resistance of elderly Russian Jewish émigrés to the dominant U.S. biomedical model of diabetes treatment. Cultural competence on the part of medical professionals who make assumptions about Russian culture tends to be based on particularly American values of self-control and individual agency. The American consumer model of health care incorporating risk, individual responsibility, autonomy, and choice, when applied to elderly Russian Jewish émigrés, results in a reading of different values and choices as failed self-management or noncompliance. This article argues for a more reflexive understanding of U.S. biomedical culture as a replacement for the current “sound bite” model of cultural diversity.
Race, Ethnicity, and Racism in Medical Anthropology, 1977–2002
Clarence C Gravlee & Elizabeth Sweet
Researchers across the health sciences are engaged in a vigorous debate over the role that the concepts of “race” and “ethnicity” play in health research and clinical practice. Here we contribute to that debate by examining how the concepts of race, ethnicity, and racism are used in medical–anthropological research. We present a content analysis of Medical Anthropology and Medical Anthropology Quarterly, based on a systematic random sample of empirical research articles (n = 283) published in these journals from 1977 to 2002. We identify both differences and similarities in the use of race, ethnicity, and racism concepts in medical anthropology and neighboring disciplines, and we offer recommendations for ways that medical anthropologists can contribute to the broader debate over racial and ethnic inequalities in health.The Emergence of Integrative Medicine in Australia: The Growing Interest of Biomedicine and Nursing in Complementary Medicine in a Southern Developed Society
Hans Baer
In this article, I examine the process by which some biomedical physicians and nurses in Australia have come to adopt various alternative therapies in their regimens of practice, largely in response to (1) the growing interest on the part of many Australians in what is generally called “complementary medicine”, and (2) a recognition that biomedicine is not particularly effective in treating an array of chronic ailments. Some Australian biomedical physicians and nurses have come to embrace “integrative medicine,” which purports to blend the best of biomedicine and complementary medicine, and have even created an Australasian Integrative Medical Association and established integrative medical training programs and centers. I argue that the adoption of alternative therapies and the development of integrative medicine on the part of Australian biomedical physicians and nurses constitute another national manifestation of the co-option of complementary and alternative medicine.
Dying under the Bird's Shadow: Narrative Representations of Degedege and Child Survival among the Zaramo of Tanzania
Vinay R Kamat
In this article, I examine the cultural interpretations of degedege, an indigenous illness commonly recognized by the Zaramo people of coastal Tanzania as life threatening. Drawing on the narratives of three bereaved parents who lost a child to degedege, I analyze the contextual and circumstantial factors involved in these parents' negotiation of the identity of an illness and in their subsequent therapy seeking behavior. I show that even though cultural knowledge and etiological beliefs about degedege may be shared locally, there is significant variation in the therapeutic pathways that parents follow to deal with an actual episode of the illness. I emphasize the need for more contextualized data on health-seeking behaviors, and argue that it is necessary to pay attention to the micropolitics of health care decision making at the household level. Finally, I also call attention to the politics of provider–patient communication at public health facilities as a means to improve public health interventions to increase child survival.
The Life and Death of a Street Boy in East Africa: Everyday Violence in the Time of AIDS
Chris Lockhart
This article focuses on the life history of a single street boy in northwestern Tanzania, whom I name Juma. I suggest that Juma's experiences and the life trajectory of himself and of significant individuals around him (particularly his mother) were structured by everyday violence. I describe everyday violence in terms of a conjuncture between macrostructural forces in East Africa (including a history of failed development schemes and the contemporary political economy of neoliberalism) and the lived experience of individuals as they negotiate local, contextual factors (including land-tenure practices, the power dynamics between immediate and extended kin, life on the streets, and constructions of gender and sexuality). I suggest that AIDS and its many impacts on Juma's life course can only be understood in a broader context of everyday violence. From this basis, I draw several general conclusions regarding AIDS prevention and intervention strategies.
book reviews
Environments for Health. Macdonald John J London
Review by Pamela I Erickson
Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness.
Review by Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban
Last Best Gifts: Altruism and the Market for Human Blood and Organs.
Review by Lesley A Sharp
Indigenous Peoples and Diabetes: Community Empowerment and Wellness. Ferreira Mariana Leal Lang Gretchen Chesley eds
Diabetes among the Pima: Stories of Survival. Smith-MorrisCarolyn
Review by Philip J Greenfeld
Surgically Shaping Children: Technology, Ethics, and the Pursuit of Normality.
Review by Gail Landsman