Medical Anthropology aims to understand the interrelationship between culture and understandings of disease, health, and healing. Anthropologists look at the biocultural basis of health to understand how different cultures experience and treat illness. This course looks at medicine in terms of health, illness, and forms of healing from an Anthropological perspective that includes biological and cross-cultural perspectives. Whereas Western biomedicine tends to favor an application of science, in some societies health and illness cannot be separated from their worldview and spiritual belief systems. This course will address the various theories and methods used to analyze and understand the body as a site of illness and healing. Topics include Healers and Healing, Ethnomedicine, Humoral Medicine, Belief Systems (Religion, Spirituality, Worldview) and understandings of health, Diet and Nutrition, Social Inequality & Health Disparities, and Cultural understandings of Mental Health.
