Description

Undergraduate

Module Content

How can what we know as anthropologists be applied to saving lives, alleviating suffering, and promoting vitality? This class surveys some answers to this question from the perspectives of medical anthropology and sister disciplines such as social medicine and global health. We will read and interrogate classic and contemporary studies from anthropology and medical literatures, and policy documents from the World Health Organisation and philanthropic foundations. Along the way, we will engage with key theoretical approaches including Critical Medical Anthropology, political ecology, and the social determinants of health. The goal of the class is to equip students to critically evaluate and apply anthropological ideas to current problems in medicine and global health.

 

Learning Outcomes

Students will obtain knowledge of, and recognise the major debates in, the fields of Applied Anthropology, Global Health, and Social Medicine.

                        Students will examine the promises and difficulties of applying anthropology to alleviate suffering and to promote                          wellbeing globally.

                        Students will assess applied methodologies and critiques of them and, where appropriate, propose new paths                              forward.

                        Students will develop critical, analytical thinking, impactful writing techniques, and oral presentation skills.

Delivery Method

One 2 hour lecture and one 1 hour tutorial per week.

Indicative readings:

Fassin, D. (2012). That obscure object of global health. In M. C. Inhorn & E. A. Wentzell, eds., Medical anthropology at the intersections: histories, activisms, and futures. Durham: Duke University Press.

Scheper-Hughes, N. (1995). The primacy of the ethical: Propositions for a militant anthropology. Current Anthropology, 36(3), 409–440.

Lockhart, C. (2008). The life and death of a street boy in East Africa: Everyday violence in the time of AIDS. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 22(1), 94-115.

 

Postgraduate

Module Content

         How can what we know as anthropologists be applied to saving lives, alleviating suffering, and promoting vitality? This                 class surveys some answers to this question from the perspectives of medical anthropology and sister disciplines such as             social medicine and global health. We will read and interrogate classic and contemporary studies from anthropology and               medical literatures, and policy documents from the World Health Organisation and philanthropic foundations. Along the                 way, we will engage with key theoretical approaches including Critical Medical Anthropology, political ecology, and the                   social determinants of health. The goal of the class is to equip students to critically evaluate and apply anthropological                 ideas to current problems in medicine and global health.

 

 

Learning Outcomes

Students will obtain knowledge of, and recognise the major debates in, the fields of Applied Anthropology, Global Health, and Social Medicine.

Students will examine the promises and difficulties of applying anthropology, for example in order to evaluate global health interventions and to promote wellbeing globally.

Students will assess applied methodologies and critiques of them and, where appropriate, propose new paths forward.

Students will develop critical thinking, impactful writing techniques, and oral presentation skills.

Delivery Method

One 2 hour lecture and one 2 hour seminar per week.

 

Indicative readings

Fassin, D. (2012). That obscure object of global health. In M. C. Inhorn & E. A. Wentzell, eds., Medical anthropology at the intersections: histories, activisms, and futures. Durham: Duke University Press.

Scheper-Hughes, N. (1995). The primacy of the ethical: Propositions for a militant anthropology. Current Anthropology, 36(3), 409–440.

Lockhart, C. (2008). The life and death of a street boy in East Africa: Everyday violence in the time of AIDS. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 22(1), 94-115.