5 August 2003

AN203-057

we will begin at 6.00pm …

Agenda

• Mapping project presentations

• Review/discuss Quinlan text

• Review/discuss P & B text

My role in review…

• We discussed Murphy and Shostak last class… please get info from classmates

• Our discussion last class gives a good indication of the sort of analysis you will be doing on the final exam

• I can introduce some larger points from Quinlan… but you will need to fill in the details

Marsha B. Quinlan, From the Bush: The Front Line of Health Care in a Caribbean Village. Toronto, Ontario: Wadsworth/Thompson, 2004.

• Medical anthropology• “Folk medicine” in

Dominica• Bwa Mawego• Rural, remote village

in Dominica

•

Folk medicine

• “Folk” simply means “people”• “Folk medicine,” then, refers to any of the various remedies,

behaviors, substances used in the course of home-treatment of an ailment:

• Band-aids (cut, scrape)• Aloe gel (sunburn)• Advil (headaches, cramps)• Hot tea/lemon/honey (sore throat)• Cool bath (fever)• Hot shower (congestion)• Chicken soup (cold or flu)

Folk medicine

• An important topic because most illnesses are treated via folk medicine rather than via a specialized medical practitioner (doctor, shaman, healer…)

• 70-90% of all medical treatment in US and Taiwan occurs at home

• Mothers in the Saraguro of Ecuador treat 86% of family illness complaints

Methodology and epistemology for studying folk medicine . . .

• Does not involve interviewing professionals or experts (methodology)

• Does involve observing day-to-day lives of non-specialist individuals within a given community (methodology)

• Why? Because the information/knowledge about folk medicine lies with the “folk” (epistemology)

• The “experts,” therefore, in folk medicine are, by definition, non-medical personnel (epistemology)

Methodology…

• Quinlan looks at population-wide data in order to locate larger patterns of behavior

• Different from the “key informant” strategy employed by some ethnographers

• Collected data during 4 field trips over a 6-year period (1993-1999)

Method & focus

• Quinlan is interested in three main ideas:– Ethnomedicine– Medical enculturation– Ethnopharmacology

• Advocates a holistic view of the beliefs, practices, and substances of medicine (i.e., medicine is a culture of its own, and varies from culture to culture)

ethnomedicine

• A culture’s body of beliefs about sickness

• Includes ideas about what we need to do to stay healthy, how we catch certain illnesses, and what we must do to get better

• Also includes knowledge of when and why (and from whom…) to seek medical help when we are sick

• http://www.tfba.org/articles.php?articleid=17

(ethno)medical enculturation

• How this body of beliefs is transferred between individuals

• Examples…

ethnopharmacology

• Ethnomedicine referred to the beliefs concerning sickness and health

• Ethnopharmacology refers to the medication itself (which can take a variety of forms)

• Drugs…• Plants…• Foods…

Method & focus

• Quinlan is interested in three main ideas:– Ethnomedicine– Medical enculturation– Ethnopharmacology

• Advocates a holistic view of the beliefs, practices, and substances of medicine (i.e., medicine is a culture of its own, and varies from culture to culture)

Holistic view ??!

• Based on the premise that treatment of any sort (specialist or non-specialist) always involves the beliefs, practices, and substances which comprise the particular culture’s perspective on health

• Quinlan (and others) use a three-fold method to ensure that anthropological analyses are holistic:

Holistic view

• Identify the health problem and how it is conceivably healed according to the locals (emic view)

• Objectively assess the remedy’s ability to produce the desired effect (etic view)

• Identify the areas of convergence and divergence between the emic and etic

Quinlan

• http://www.bsudailynews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/07/07/3f09c5525772a

P & B Thematic ReviewFieldwork

- Communication• Food• Agriculture• Race• Economy & Business• Gender and Socialization• Marriage and Gender Relations• Politics, Law, & Warfare• Religion, Ritual, & Curing• Cultural Change & Globalization

For each article:

1) Main point (thesis) in one sentence.2) Two most interesting ideas from the article.3) Two most important terms from the article.4) Two anthropological concepts that the article

illustrates/addresses (e.g., methodology, emic view, ethnicity…)

5) One larger theme under which the article could be categorized (e.g., marriage, gender relations, health, etc…).

…this just in…

Tonight we have to fill out course evaluation forms!

I cannot be here when you fill them out… so I will leave them here in an envelope and return at 8.30pm…

Someone needs to volunteer to collect them and take them downstairs to the Continuing Ed. Office.