Medical Anthropology Quarterly (MAQ)
International Journal for the Analysis of Health
Vol. 21, No. 2: June 2007
articles
"Sonography and Sociality: Obstetrical Ultrasound Imaging in Urban Vietnam"
Tine Gammeltoft
- This article is about new reproductive technologies, maternal anxieties, and existential uncertainties. It explores the question of why pregnant women in Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, have become avid consumers of obstetrical ultrasound scanning even while expressing profound doubts regarding the reliability and safety of this new technology of pregnancy. Through a phenomenological analysis of the social production of women's sense of reproductive risks and uncertainties, the article shows how Hanoian women's paradoxical stances toward ultrasound imaging can be explained through a consideration of embodied and historically generated experiences within everyday local worlds. The article argues that the “scientific stories” of fetal well-being and normality that are produced through ultrasonography are challenged by vivid and continual exchanges in everyday lives of stories of the inherent uncertainties of existence in general and of human reproduction in particular.
"Persons, Places, and Times: The Meanings of Repetition in an STD Clinic"
Lori Leonard, Jessica L. Greene, Emily Erbelding
- In this article we work the tensions between the way clinical medicine and public health necessarily construct the problem of “repetition” in the context of a sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinic and the ways patients narrate their illness experiences. This tension—between clinical and epidemiological exigencies and the messiness of lived experience—is a recurring theme of work conducted at the intersections of epidemiology, anthropology, and clinical medicine. Clinically, repeated infections are a threat to the individual body and to “normal” biological processes like reproduction. From a public health perspective, “repeaters” are imagined to be part of a “core group” that keeps infections in circulation, endangering the social body. Yet patients' accounts are anchored in particular social histories, and their experiences rely on different time scales than those implicated in either of these types of readings. Extended analyses are provided of two such accounts: one in which repetition can be “read” as part of a performance of recovery, and one in which repetition is bound up in the effort to avoid becoming the involuntary subject of institutionally administered intervention. We argue the need to open up the category of repeaters to include the social and draw on work by Cheryl Mattingly to suggest that one way to do this in the context of the STD clinic might be to adopt forms of therapeutic practice that make use of interpretive, in addition to technical, skills.
"Modernization and Medicinal Plant Knowledge in a Caribbean Horticultural Village"
Marsha B. Quinlan, Robert J. Quinlan
- Herbal medicine is the first response to illness in rural Dominica. Every adult knows several “bush” medicines, and knowledge varies from person to person. Anthropological convention suggests that modernization generally weakens traditional knowledge. We examine the effects of commercial occupation, consumerism, education, parenthood, age, and gender on the number of medicinal plants freelisted by individuals. All six predictors are associated with bush medical knowledge in bivariate analyses. Contrary to predictions, commercial occupation and consumerism are positively associated with herbal knowledge. Gender, age, occupation, and education are significant predictors in multivariate analysis. Women tend to recall more plants than do men. Education is negatively associated with plants listed; age positively associates with number of species listed. There are significant interactions among commercial occupation, education, age, and parenthood, suggesting that modernization has complex effects on knowledge of traditional medicine in Dominica.
"Social Support and Distress among Q'eqchi' Refugee Women in Maya Tecún, Mexico"
Faith R. Warner
- This article addresses issues of vulnerability and distress through an analysis of the relationship between social support networks and traumatic stress in a Q'eqchi' refugee community in southern Mexico. The sociopolitical violence, forced displacement, and encampment of Guatemalan Mayan populations resulted in the breakdown and dispersal of kin and community groups, leaving many Q'eqchi' women with weakened social support networks. Research involving testimonial interviews and traumatic stress and social support questionnaires revealed that Q'eqchi' refugee women with weak natal kin social support networks reported greater feelings of distress and symptoms of traumatic stress than did women with strong networks. In particular, a condition identified as muchkej emerged as one of the most significant symptoms reported by women with weak natal kin support networks. I critically consider muchkej as an idiom of distress and argue that aid organizations should consider the relationship between social support and traumatic stress, as expressed through such idioms, when attempting to identify vulnerable members of a refugee population.
"The Vanishing Mother: Cesarean Section and “Evidence-Based Obstetrics” "
Claire L. Wendland
- The philosophy of “evidence-based medicine”—basing medical decisions on evidence from randomized controlled trials and other forms of aggregate data rather than on clinical experience or expert opinion—has swept U.S. medical practice in recent years. Obstetricians justify recent increases in the use of cesarean section, and dramatic decreases in vaginal birth following previous cesarean, as evidence-based obstetrical practice. Analysis of pivotal “evidence” supporting cesarean demonstrates that the data are a product of its social milieu: The mother's body disappears from analytical view; images of fetal safety are marketing tools; technology magically wards off the unpredictability and danger of birth. These changes in practice have profound implications for maternal and child health. A feminist project within obstetrics is both feasible and urgently needed as one locus of resistance.
"The Rights of Children" : Society for Medical Anthropology Council on Infant and Child Health and Welfare (CICH), Policy Statement Task Force
- Children, who are vulnerable at the start of existence, are a concern shared by nations and cultures. The importance of children's conditions has led 192 out of 194 countries to ratify the UN General Assembly's Convention on the Rights of the Child. The United States has not yet ratified the convention, despite having exercised influence on the drafting of its provisions. Given the global importance of nurturing and protecting children, the Society for Medical Anthropology strongly and emphatically supports that the convention be ratified, and that the U.S. government submit the convention for approval by the U.S. Senate.
"In Memoriam: Gay Becker, 1943–2007. Editor, MAQ: 1994–98"
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Sharon R. Kaufman, Marcia C. Inhorn
book reviews
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Blessed Events: Religion and Home Birth in America
reviewed by Erica Gibson and Kathryn S. Oths -
Conjuring Hope: Healing and Magic in Contemporary Russia
reviewed by Michele Rivkin-Fish -
Healing with Herbs and Rituals: A Mexican Tradition
reviewed by Luci Latina Fernandes
