Work of Hospitals

WILLIAM C. OLSEN is a lecturer in African anthropology in the African studies program at Georgetown University and a research librarian in the Georgetown University Library. He is the co-editor (with Walter van Beek) of Evil in Africa, and the co-editor (with Tom Csordas) for Engaging Evil: A Moral Anthropology.CAROLYN SARGENT is professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. She is co-editor (with Caroline Brettell) of Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, and co-editor (with Carole Browner) of Reproduction, Globalization, and the State.

"Drawing on a range of evocative and sometimes shocking examples, The Work of Hospitals showcases the value of comparative, ethnographic research, beautifully asserting the enduring significance of the clinical space as a lens through which to understand society. Hospitals are spaces of refracted power, surveillance, and Othering, but also inevitably of experimentation. Medicine is no finished product to be enacted on passive bodies, but is negotiated and remade continually in relation to patients’ own sentiments and worldviews." - Elizabeth Hull (author of Contingent Citizens: Professional Aspiration in a South African Hospital) "Drawing on a range of evocative and sometimes shocking examples, The Work of Hospitals showcases the value of comparative, ethnographic research, beautifully asserting the enduring significance of the clinical space as a lens through which to understand society. Hospitals are spaces of refracted power, surveillance, and Othering, but also inevitably of experimentation. Medicine is no finished product to be enacted on passive bodies, but is negotiated and remade continually in relation to patients’ own sentiments and worldviews." - Elizabeth Hull (author of Contingent Citizens: Professional Aspiration in a South African Hospital) "A landmark study of the hospital as a social space caught up in global and neoliberal logics. The book's incisive case studies explore moments of care and canny improvisation in the face of structural neglect. By showing how professionals, patients, and families engage each other on contested hospital landscapes, the book makes an important contribution to the anthropology of medicine, power and care in a global age."  - Paul Brodwin (author of Everyday Ethics: Voices from the Front Line of Community Psychiatry) "A landmark study of the hospital as a social space caught up in global and neoliberal logics. The book's incisive case studies explore moments of care and canny improvisation in the face of structural neglect. By showing how professionals, patients, and families engage each other on contested hospital landscapes, the book makes an important contribution to the anthropology of medicine, power and care in a global age."  - Paul Brodwin (author of Everyday Ethics: Voices from the Front Line of Community Psychiatry) "The wide variety of hospitals and contexts in this collection provides ample material for reflecting on the gaps between the ideals and realities in hospital practice, as well as a rich portrait of the global diversity of health care." (Family Medicine) "The wide variety of hospitals and contexts in this collection provides ample material for reflecting on the gaps between the ideals and realities in hospital practice, as well as a rich portrait of the global diversity of health care." (Family Medicine)

• IntroductionWilliam C. Olsen and Carolyn SargentPart I Global Medicines in Local Cultures1 Global Health Goals and Local Constraints in a Rural Peruvian ClinicMorgan K. Hoke, Samya R. Stumo, and Thomas L. Leatherman2 Science and Sanctity: Biomedicine and Christianity at an Ethiopian HospitalAnita Hannig3 The Cosmopolitan HospitalCheryl Mattingly4 “Dangerous Disease”: Epilepsy in AsanteWilliam C. Olsen5 The Salience of the State in Biomedicine: Congo and Uganda Cases ComparedJohn M. JanzenPart II Care Giving and Hospital Labor6 Creating a Therapeutic Community: Lessons from Allada Hospital BeninMark Nichter, Ghislain Emmanuel Sopoh, and Roch Christian Johnson7 Medical “Errands” among Women with Cervical Cancer in GuatemalaAnita Chary and Peter Rohloff8 Routinized Caring or a “Call” to Nursing: Shifts in Hospital Nursing in Rukwa, TanzaniaAdrienne E. Strong9 “We Work with What We Have, Not with What We Would Like to Have”: Hospital Care in MexicoVania Smith-Oka and Kayla J. HurdPart III Hospitals and the Patient10 The Navigation of Public Hospitals by West African Immigrants with Cancer in Paris, FranceCarolyn Sargent11 Each Child Is Unique: The Responsible U.S. Parent’s Take on Hospital Care Gone WrongElisa J. Sobo12 Making Ethnographic Sense of Cesarean Rates in Greek Public HospitalsEugenia Georges13 The Nightside of Medicine: Obstetric Suffering and Ethnographic Witnessing in a Pakistani HospitalEmma VarleyAfterwordClaire WendlandReferencesNotes on ContributorsIndex