Postgraduate Course: Anthropology of Health and Illness (PGSP11423)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Medical Anthropology is concerned with experiences and practices of health, illness, and healing in different social and cultural settings. One of anthropology's most rapidly growing sub-disciplines, medical anthropology explores both traditional healing and modern medical technologies. It looks at how healing forms address both old ills and emerging health problems associated with social change. This course introduces the students to the key issues in medical anthropology and gets them engaged with the field's distinctive perspective on health and healing. |
| Course description |
Week 1: INTRODUCING MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Week 2: THE BODY AND ITS PARTS
Week 3: SEX, GENDER AND NORMALITY
Week 4: MADNESS CROSS-CULTURALLY
Week 5: DISTURBED EMOTION
Week 6: ILLNESS AND INEQUALITY
Week 7: LIFE AND DEATH
Week 8: MEDICALIZATION AND BIOPOWER
Week 9: SUBSTANCES, SELF AND SOCIETY
Week 10: VIOLENCE AND TRAUMA
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2024/25, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Coursework (100%)
The essay (100%) will be due at the end of the teaching weeks. Further guidance on the essay will be made available to students in week 2. |
| Feedback |
Students will receive guidance on essay writing during lectures and will receive written feedback on their essays. Students are encouraged to seek further verbal feedback on assessments during the weekly guidance and feedback hours or by appointment. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- why social and political analysis are relevant for understanding the body and mind, in and out of health
- why "modernity" has not made non-biomedical forms of healing disappear
- why biomedicine is also a social and cultural practice
- how medical anthropology uses different conceptual and theoretical approaches
- how medical anthropologists do ethnographic research
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Reading List
Course Textbook
Lock, M. & Farquhar, J. (Eds). 2007. Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of Material Life. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Introductory Readings
Hahn, R. 1995. Sickness and Healing: An Anthropological Perspective. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Helman, C.G. (Ed.). 2007. Culture, Health and Illness: An Introduction for Health Professionals. Fifth Edition. Oxford: Hodder Arnold.
Lock, M. M., & Nguyen, V.-K. 2010. An anthropology of Biomedicine. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Nichter, M. 2008. Global Health: Why Cultural Perceptions, Social Representations, and Biopolitics Matter. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
Nichter, M. & Lock, M. (Eds.). 2002. New Horizons in Medical Anthropology: Essays in Honour of Charles Leslie. London: Routledge.
Pool, R. & Geissler, W. 2005. Medical Anthropology. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Samson, C. (Ed.). 1999. Health Studies: A Critical and Cross-Cultural Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
Saillant, F. & Genest, S. (Eds). 2007. Medical Anthropology: Regional Perspectives and Shared Concerns. Oxford: Blackwell.
Sargent, C.F. & Johnson, T.M. (Eds.). 1996. Medical Anthropology: Contemporary Theory and Method. Revised Edition. Westport, CT: Praeger. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Ayaz Qureshi
Tel: (0131 6)51 5361
Email: |
Course secretary | Mr James Wills
Tel:
Email: |
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