Critical Anthropology for Global Health Study Group: home
The Critical Anthropology for Global Health Study Group is a special interest group of the Society for Medical Anthropology in collaboration with the Institute for Health and Social Justice of Partners in Health and the Hispanic Health Council.
--The original CAH Statement (prior to the merger) --
We are an international group of anthropologists and students who share a common interest in health and a strong commitment to the realization of health and human rights for all citizens. In recognition of our special responsibility as witnesses, documentarians, and analysts of the nature and causes of human suffering, we not only record and seek to comprehend these processes, we are also committed to participating as scholars and advocates in campaigns to improve them as best as we can, acknowledging the limitations of our fields in efforts to alleviate human suffering.
By exploring current and past socioeconomic and political processes, we seek to identify and expose structural patterns that undermine the health of poor and marginalized groups wherever they reside. Further, we seek to understand the international role of health and health care in maintaining and furthering systems of inequality. As anthropologists, we are concerned with the impact of structure on local experience, behavior, and meanings. At the same time, we seek to understand how local and broader initiatives about health issues can have an impact on the encompassing social structures.
CAH members are currently concerned with the effect on health of political economic issues such as:the effects of corporate-led globalization --- poor-country debt --- structural adjustment policies such as the deregulation of labor --- privatization, of health services in particular --- trade-related issues especially between vastly unequal trading partners --- the health impacts of for-profit health care --- the exportation of US-style, for-profit health companies --- the changing face of international aid, sanctions, and embargoes --- the effects of armed conflict and military intervention;Critical anthropology of health members also examine the effects on health of past and ongoing processes such as:
wealth and income disparities within and between countries --- the unequal distribution of health resources --- colonialism --- institutional racism --- sexism and homosexism --- slavery --- entrenched poverty --- structural violence and social sufferingWe welcome all scholars, students, health providers, and activists who share our vision and our goals.