Hans Baer – författare

The purpose of this book is to provide an introduction and overview to the critical perspective as it has evolved in medical anthropology over the last ten years. Standing as an opposition approach to conventional medical anthropology, critical medical anthropology has emphasized the importance of political and economy forces, including the exercise of power, in shaping health, disease, illness experience, and health care.

Climate change is the hottest topic of the twenty-first century and the climate movement a significant global social movement. This book examines the broad context of Australian climate politics and the place of the climate movement within it. Acting 'from above' are the most powerful forces-corporations and governments, both Labor and Coalition-with the media framing the issues. Climate movement actors 'in the middle' include the Australian Greens, major environmental and climate organisations, public intellectuals, think-tanks, academics and the union movement. Acting 'from below' are the numerous local climate action groups and various regional and national networks. This lowest level is the primary location of the climate movement: and grassroots mobilisation the source of its vitality. Burgmann and Baer's study offers a vision for an alternative Australia based upon the principles of social equity and environmental sustainability.

Analysing the juxtaposition of two trends in universities – corporatisation and environmental sustainability – this book explores how they are more contradictory than compatible.Hans A Baer argues that this contradiction is unavoidable because of the capitalist parameters in which they operate, including a commitment to on-going economic growth which contributes to social inequality, environmental degradation, and greenhouse gas emissions. Drawing on archival sources and Baer’s experiences in university sustainability forums, the book exposes how what universities claim to do in relation to environmental sustainability compares with their research, educational, operational and institutional activities.Presenting a critique of and a radical alternative to the status quo, this book is suitable for academics and students of anthropology, environmental studies and higher education.

Analysing the juxtaposition of two trends in universities – corporatisation and environmental sustainability – this book explores how they are more contradictory than compatible.Hans A Baer argues that this contradiction is unavoidable because of the capitalist parameters in which they operate, including a commitment to on-going economic growth which contributes to social inequality, environmental degradation, and greenhouse gas emissions. Drawing on archival sources and Baer’s experiences in university sustainability forums, the book exposes how what universities claim to do in relation to environmental sustainability compares with their research, educational, operational and institutional activities.Presenting a critique of and a radical alternative to the status quo, this book is suitable for academics and students of anthropology, environmental studies and higher education.

In the late nineteenth century on the eve of the formation of Australia as a nation-state in 1902, the Australian medical system could be best described as a pluralistic one in the sense that while regular medicine constituted the predominant medical system, it was not clearly the dominant one in that regular physicians faced competition from a wide array of alternative practitioners. As regular medicine increasingly assumed the guise of being scientific, it evolved into biomedicine and developed a link with corporate and state interests in the early twentieth century in Australia, as in other capitalist developed societies. Relying upon state support, Australian biomedicine has achieved dominance over alternative medical system, such as homeopathy, herbal medicine, osteopathy, chiropractic, and naturopathy. Various social forces, particularly the development of the holistic health movement, have served to challenge biomedical dominance in Australia, like elsewhere. What started out as a popular health movement in the early 1970s has evolved into the professionalized entity that is generally referred to as 'complementary medicine' in Australia (as opposed to 'complementary and alternative medicine' in the US and UK). Complementary medicine in Australia encompasses many medical systems and therapies. Since the 1980s certain heterodox medical systems, particularly chiropractic, osteopathy, acupuncture and Chinese medicine, naturopathy, Western herbalism, and homeopathy, have achieved considerable recognition from the Australian state, either at the federal level or at the state and territorial levels. Indeed, the Australian state appears to have gone further than any other Anglophone country in terms of providing public funding for complementary medicine education. Conversely, it has committed a limited amount of funding for complementary medicine research compared to the United States.

In this groundbreaking, global analysis of the relationship between climate change and human health, Hans Baer and Merrill Singer inventory and critically analyze the diversity of significant and sometimes devastating health implications of global warming. Using a range of theoretical tools from anthropology, medicine, and environmental sciences, they present ecosyndemics as a new paradigm for understanding the relationship between environmental change and disease. They also go beyond the traditional concept of disease to examine changes in subsistence and settlement patterns, land-use, and lifeways, throwing the sociopolitical and economic dimensions of climate change into stark relief. Revealing the systemic structures of inequality underlying global warming, they also issue a call to action, arguing that fundamental changes in the world system are essential to the mitigation of an array of emerging health crises link to anthropogenic climate and environmental change.

In this groundbreaking, global analysis of the relationship between climate change and human health, Hans Baer and Merrill Singer inventory and critically analyze the diversity of significant and sometimes devastating health implications of global warming. Using a range of theoretical tools from anthropology, medicine, and environmental sciences, they present ecosyndemics as a new paradigm for understanding the relationship between environmental change and disease. They also go beyond the traditional concept of disease to examine changes in subsistence and settlement patterns, land-use, and lifeways, throwing the sociopolitical and economic dimensions of climate change into stark relief. Revealing the systemic structures of inequality underlying global warming, they also issue a call to action, arguing that fundamental changes in the world system are essential to the mitigation of an array of emerging health crises link to anthropogenic climate and environmental change.