Critical medical anthropology

417 Pages·2018·49.21 MB·English

by  Baer

Critical Medical Anthropology
Merrill Singer
Hispanic Health Council
and
HansBaer
University ofA rkansas at Little Rock
Critical Approaches in the Health Social Sciences Series
Series Editor: Ray H. Elling
Boca Raton London New York
CRC Press is an imprint of the
Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
First published 1995 by Baywood Publishing Company, Inc.
Published 2018 by CRC Press
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First issued in paperback 2018
© 1995 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
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No claim to original U.S. Government works
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-78376-7 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-89503-124-2 (hbk)
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Library of Congress Catalog Number 94-39810
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Singer, Merrill.
Critical medical anthropology I Merrill Singer and Hans Baer.
p. em. --(Critical approaches in the health social sciences
series) (Political economy of health care series)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-89503-124-8 (cloth). -- ISBN 0-89503-150-7 (paper)
1. Medical anthropology. I. Baer, Hans, 1944- . IT. Title.
m.
Series. IV. Series: Political economy of health care series.
GN296.S56 1995
306.4'61--dc20 94-39810
CIP
Dedication
We dedicate this book to the students and colleagues with whom we share the
vision that great progressive change is possible and probably closest at hand when it
seems most distant.
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Preface
This book, the culmination of over ten years of shared work by the authors, seeks
to contribute to the effort to re-orient medical anthropology by means of a political
economic contextualization of its field of study and application, and by way of a
re-focus on power and inequality as central explanatory factors. In this volume, we
have pulled together in one place many of the papers we have written as part of the
effort to build a critical medical anthropology. All of these have been updated and in
some cases considerably expanded. Through this effort we hope to offer a work that
will clearly lay out the perspective and work of critical medical anthropology. While
it is our hope that this book will be of interest to many anthropologists as well as other
social scientists, health care providers, and public health professionals (including
those who will find much to disagree with in it), we have written this book with a
special concern that it be of use to undergraduate and graduate students. It is the
interest of these students in becoming part of the effort to build a critical approach,
especially students in medical anthropology programs around the country, that has
offered the greatest gratification to us over the years. Some of these students we have
gotten to know well, others we have met only briefly at conferences, forums, and
campus lectures. When they tell us the impact critical medical anthropology has had
on their lives and their careers, we feel that we already have achieved our objective.
v

Acknowledgments
We deeply wish to acknowledge the true support of our many anthropology
colleagues who share with us the title of critical medical anthropologist, as well as
those in other subfields of anthropology, in our health social sciences, and in health
care and public health who see the world in a similar critical way. We greatly value
our friendships and professional relations with these colleagues. Though titles may
vary, the struggle is a common one. Especially, in this regard, we thank Ray Elling,
editor of the book series in which this volume appears, for his many years of
friendship and support. Most of us are uncertain if we ever make a difference in this
world. Through his effort to always stay true to his principles, Ray Elling has made a
difference. Also, we extend warm thanks to Bobbi Olszewski for her production
work on the book and the entire crew at Bay wood Publishing Company for the effort
put into bringing out Critical Medical Anthropology in a timely fashion.
Several of the chapters to follow were written especially for this volume, others are
expansions of a series of articles the authors have published on critical medical
anthropology since the mid-1980s. For allowing us to include revised versions here,
the authors gratefully acknowledge and thank the journals and books in which the
following earlier versions of several of the chapters were first published:
Hans Baer, Prophets and Advisors in Black Spiritual Churches: Therapy, Palliative, or Opiate,
Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 5:145-170,1981.
Hans Baer, The Drive for Professionalization in British Osteopathy, Social Science and
Medicine, 79:717-724,1984.
Hans Baer, The American Dominative Medical System As a Reflection of Social Relations in
the Larger Society, Social Science and Medicine, 28(11): 1103-1112,1989.
Hans Baer, Towards a Critical Medical Anthropology of Health-Related Issues in Socialist-
Oriented Societies, Medical Anthropology, 77(2): 181-194,1989.
Hans Baer, Kerr-McGee and the NRC: From Indian Country to Silkwood to Gore, Social
Science and Medicine, 30(2):237-248, 1990.
Hans Baer, How Critical Can Clinical Anthropology Be? Medical Anthropology, 75(3):299-
317, 1993.
Merrill Singer, Cure, Care and Control: An Ectopic Encounter with Biomedical Obstetrics, in
Encounter with Biomedicine: Case Studies in Medical Anthropology, Hans Baer (ed.),
Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, pp. 249-265,1987.
Merrill Singer, Lani Davison, and Gina Gerdes, Culture, Critical Theory, and Reproductive
Illness Behavior in Haiti, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 2:370-385, 1988.
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viii / ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Merrill Singer, Postmodernism and Medical Anthropology: Words of Caution, Medical
Anthropology, 72(3):289-304, 1990.
Merrill Singer, Freddie Valentin, Hans Baer, and Zhongke Jia, Why Does Juan Garcia Have a
Drinking Problem?: The Perspective of Critical Medical Anthropology, Medical
Anthropology, 74(1):77-108, 1992.
Merrill Singer, AIDS and the Health Crisis of the U.S. Urban Poor: The Perspective of Critical
Medical Anthropology, Social Science and Medicine, J9(7):931-948, 1994.
Merrill Singer, Beyond the Ivory Tower: Critical Praxis in Medical Anthropology, Medical
Anthropology Quarterly, 9(1), 1995.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SECTION A: Orientation................................................................... 1
Introduction............................................................................................. 3
Chapter 1
Medical Anthropology and its Transformation............................. 11
Chapter 2
The Critical G aze............................................................................. 59
Chapter 3
Postmodernism Medical Anthropology: A Critique................... 113
SECTION B: The Macro-Social Level................................................ 133
Chapter 4
Health-Related Issues in Socialist-Oriented Societies:
Ideals, Contradictions, and Realities............................................. 135
Chapter 5
Studying Up: The Political Economy of
Nuclear Regulation.......................................................................... 157
SECTION C: The Intermediate-Social Level................................... 179
Chapter 6
The American Dominative Medical System as a Reflection of
Social Relations in the Larger Society.......................................... 181
Chapter 7
AIDS and the Health Crisis of the U.S. Urban Poor................... 203
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