8 29 notes Subfields include CLAP cultural linguistic archeology physical Addresses topics such as medical anthro applied anthro cultural relativism moral relativism ethnocentrism What is culture o Learned patterns of thought and behavior shared by a social group o Model of culture Ideology Social and political organization Technology and economy 9 3 Medical Anthropology LECTURE NOTES Health is a state of complete physical mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity Etiology includes first individual belief then natural world then social and then supernatural The emic approach investigates how local people think Kottak 2006 How they perceive and categorize the world their rules for behavior what has meaning for them and how they imagine and explain things The etic scientist oriented approach shifts the focus from local observations categories explanations and interpretations to those of the anthropologist The etic approach realizes that members of a culture often are too involved in what they are doing to interpret their cultures impartially When using the etic approach the ethnographer emphasizes what he or she considers important Anthropology has 4 subfields o Physical linguitics archaelogical cultural Culture has 6 attributes o Changing learned adaptive symbolic shared integrative Paul Farmer Social Inequalities and Infection Diseases Notes o Emerging infections usually categorized by type of factors held to be related to their emergence over the type of agent o Most diseases are those that have changed in virulence and distribution others are relatively new on the scene like AIDS etc o Many diseases such as malaria tropical diseases predominantly affect the poor groups usually bounded by socioeconomic status than by latitude o Health models need to be dynamic system and critical o Many health models do not look at underlying factors but are limited by frameworks to study disease o In fact poverty and inequality are not listed as causes of emergence o Emerging how and to what extent Case of Ebola o Found that came from unsanitary needle sharing o But one s likelihood of coming into contact with unsterile needles is inversely proportional to one s social status thus this disease is social class related and rich people not likely to contract o Diseases visibility was made popular through cinema and novels when in truth ebola is only one of the few biggest problems in the nation thus money research goes to the wrong places o Emerging from where Case of TB o Disease has always existed but was always hiding among the poor o Diseases hide among poor people especially when the poor are socially and medically segregated from those whose deaths might be considered more important o AIDS o Spread of HIV does not follow national borders but rather the contours of transnational socioeconomic order usually steep gradients of inequality where there is migrant labor and sexual commerce o The gradient will get worse b c three drug regimen to cure costs between 12 16 000 a year o Although there are many similarities between our vulnerability to infectious diseases and that of our ancestors there is one distinct difference we have more scientific knowledge but the we is ambiguous The ones who get diseases are the ones who do not have the scientific knowledge science is blocked at customs too o Borders are semipermeable between nations open to diseases and yet closed to the free movement of cures b c different medical systems o Lack of compassion but easy to trace illnesses through biological restriction fragment length polymorphism etc o Critical epistemology questions to answer o Why are some persons risk groups and others are individuals at risk Why are some approaches and subjects considered for publication and others are dismissed o Why are some epidemics invisible and others visible o What is not examined may be as important as what is examined in disease study YANOMAMO NOTESReligion and Expressive Culture o The Yanomam believe that the cosmos consists of four parallel planes or layers The upper most layer is empty but was once occupied by ancient beings who descended to lower layers The second layer or sky is the home of spirits of dead men and women and it resembles the earth except that the hunting is better the food tastier and the spirits of people are young and beautiful The third layer is the earth and below the earth is the fourth layer or underworld In the underworld live the Amahi teri ancient spirits that bring harm to living humans The Yanomam have multiple souls that exist in a complex relation to one another All shamans can use demons over which they have personal control to cure or cause illnesses Catholic and evangelical Protestant missionaries have been in steady contact with the Yanomam since the late 1950s but have had very little success in making converts o The shaman is called upon to divine the causes of illness or misfortune cure the ill and sicken the enemy by sending demons that he controls Shamans are also expert at using wild and domesticated plants that are useful for casting spells Only men can become shamans and they must complete an arduous training period requiring food deprivation and abstinence from sex o Ceremonies Perhaps the most important and certainly the most dramatic ceremony is the reahu or mortuary ceremony It culminates when the bone ash of the deceased is mixed in a plantain puree and consumed by mourners in a demonstration of respect for the dead and in consolation to the close relatives of the deceased This ceremony has considerable political implications if the deceased was a valiant warrior waiteri slain by enemies and when attended by members of allied villages o Yanomam graphic art is limited and simple Sparse geometric designs usually black or red adorn common objects such as baskets arrow points and bodies The verbal and vocal arts such as oratory chanting and myth telling are much esteemed and developed among the Yanomam Although these acts may have political and social significance e g when village leaders employing esoteric metaphors and archaic words ritually exchange chants performers are admired and gain status based on their talents o The Yanomam believe most serious illness to be the handiwork of independently acting hekura or enemy shamans who have caused their hekura to sicken a body A shaman must diagnose the cause and sometimes figuratively pull the demon out often with the help of his