ANTHROP 1AA3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Medical Anthropology, Social Stigma, Necrosis
17 Jan 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Dif cult to cure medically: no clear biological cause, may be some biological/genetic causes. Linked to concern with appearance and body weight: cultural. Achieved by deliberate avoidance of food, excessive vomiting and exercising: has biological repercussions. Body images vary from culture to culture and over time. Anorexia like behaviour was seen as positive in the past. Environment interacts with culture to in uence the cause and spread of health problems. Anorexia nervosa - results from urbanization, modernization, stressors". Interpretive: focus on illness and healing as symbols and meanings eg. placebo. Critical: focus on how economic and political factors affect health and access to healing, anorexia nervosa - socially constructed concepts of perfection, morality. Cultural method for negotiating reality and moral roles: who bene ts from certain types of healing, western biomedicine is said to be a system of social control. Mode of transmission is not understand: possibly through sneezing coughing, skin to skin contact.
