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Evolution of Sickness and Healing is a theoretical work on the grand scale, an original synthesis of many disciplines in social studies of medicine. Looking at human sickness and healing through the lens of evolutionary theory, Horacio Fàbrega, Jr. presents not only the vulnerability to disease and injury but also the need to show and communicate sickness and to seek and provide healing as innate biological traits grounded in evolution. This linking of sickness and healing, as inseparable facets of a unique human adaptation developed during the evolution of the hominid line, offers a new vantage point from which to examine the institution of medicine. To show how this complex, integrated ad...
"Establishing a theoretical base and framework for future studies in this new field of 'medical evolution,' the book is important and will be read and referred back to for years to come."--Frederick L. Dunn, University of California, San Francisco "Establishing a theoretical base and framework for future studies in this new field of 'medical evolution,' the book is important and will be read and referred back to for years to come."--Frederick L. Dunn, University of California, San Francisco
This revised textbook provides students with a first exposure to the growing field of medical anthropology. The narrative is guided by unifying themes. First, medical anthropology is actively engaged in helping to address pressing health problems around the globe through research, intervention, and policy-related initiatives. Second, illness and disease cannot be fully understood or effectively addressed by treating them solely as biological in nature; rather, health problems involve complex biosocial processes and resolving them requires attention to range of factors including systems of belief, structures of social relationship, and environmental conditions. Third, through an examination of health inequalities on the one hand and environmental degradation and environment-related illness on the other, the book underlines the need for going beyond cultural or even ecological models of health toward a comprehensive medical anthropology. The authors show that a medical anthropology that integrates biological, cultural, and social factors to truly understand the origin of ill health will contribute to more effective and equitable health care systems.
As homelessness continues to plague North America and also becomes more widespread in Europe, anthropologists turn their attention to solving the puzzle of why people in some of the most advanced technological societies in the world are found huddled in a subway tunnel, squatting in a vacant building, living in a shelter, or camping out in an abandoned field or on a beach. Anthropologists have a long tradition of working in poverty subcultures and have been able to contribute answers to some of the puzzles of homelessness through their ability to enter the culture of the homeless without some of the preconceptions of other disciplines. The authors, anthropologists from the U.S.A. and Canada, offer us an analysis of homelessness that is grounded in anthropological research in North America and throughout the world. Both have in-depth experience through working in communities of the homeless and present us withthe results of their own work and with that of their colleagues.
What are the origins of human psychopathology? Is mental illness a relatively recent phenomenon, or has it been with us throughout evolution? In Origins of Psychopathology, Horacio Fárega Jr. employs principles of evolutionary biology to better understand the significance of mental illness. He explores whether what psychiatry has categorized as mental disorders could have existed during earlier phases of human evolution. Fábrega approaches the prominent features of mental disorders as adaptive responses to the environment and life's circumstances, which in turn can only be understood in the context of our evolutionary past. Taking his cue from theoretical issues raised by research into pri...
Biomedicine is the dominant organizing framework of modern medicine but it is not the only lens through which health, illness and disease can be understood. This interdisciplinary collection of essays brings together scholars from around the world who seek to probe the boundaries of biomedicine. This book is the outcome of the third global conference on Making Sense of: Health, Illness and Disease, held at St Catherine's College, Oxford, in July 2004. The papers selected for this volume take a variety of theoretical positions but share an interest in the social study of health, illness and disease. They consider how biomedicine is a cultural system and is imbued with other meanings and that a full exploration of health, illness and disease requires a variety of perspectives, including those of social scientists, humanists and practicing clinicians. This volume will be of interest to students, researchers and health care providers who wish to gain insight into the many ways through which we can understand health, illness and disease.
2022 Bronze Living Now Book Award 2022 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Trauma can feel like a labyrinth, twisting on itself like a maze of despair, without end or exit. This seems particularly true in today’s chaotic world of pandemics, climate change, social conflict, and systemic violence. Increasingly, the conditions of the larger world aggravate, if not cause, the traumas in our individual lives. However, as Laura K. Kerr explores in this wide-ranging collection of essays, not only can we heal from trauma, but we can use it as an opportunity for growth and transformation, changing ourselves and the world for the better. Drawing from her experiences as researcher, trauma survivor...
Described as a landmark in the ethnographic study of the Maya, this study of ritual and cosmology among the contemporary Quiché Indians of highland Guatemala has now been updated to address changes that have occurred in the last decade. The Classic Mayan obsession with time has never been better known. Here, Barbara Tedlock redirects our attention to the present-day keepers of the ancient calendar. Combining anthropology with formal apprenticeship to a diviner, she refutes long-held ethnographic assumptions and opens a door to the order of the Mayan cosmos and its daily ritual. Unable to visit the region for over ten years, Tedlock returned in 1989 to find that observance of the traditional calendar and religion is stronger than ever, despite a brutal civil war. ". . . a well-written, highly readable, and deeply convincing contribution. . . ." --Michael Coe
Dissociation typically describes a psychological defense that protects the psyche from emotionally overwhelming events. However, dissociation can also contribute to maintaining and restoring relationships after suffering traumatic stress and overwhelming social strain. Two aspects of late modern American society interfere with dissociation’s contribution to social change: 1) the Enlightenment conception of human nature, on which American democracy is based, and 2) America’s sharp distinctions between public and private spheres of life. Using research on human evolution, neuroscience, trauma, and Jungian psychology, Dissociation in Late Modern America shows how Americans have become dependent on dissociative defenses in everyday life, challenging their capacity for soulful connections and living.
Eating disorders: do they mark cultural transition? Eating disorders that were once viewed as exclusive to specific class and ethnic boundaries in western culture are now spreading worldwide. This issue is fully discussed in this groundbreaking volume. Eating Disorders and Cultures in Transition is written by an international group of authors to address the recent emergence of eating disorders in various areas of the world including countries in South America, Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. It offers an in-depth analysis of the existing socio-cultural model arguing for the need to extend both our theoretical understanding and clinical work to account properly for this global phenomenon. Ea...