Mark Nichter - Böcker

New Horizons in Medical Anthropology is a festschrift in honor of Charles Leslie whose influential career helped shape this subfield of anthropology. This collection of cutting-edge essays explores medical innovation and medical pluralism at the turn of the 21st century. The book accomplishes two things: it reflects recent research by medical anthropologists working in Asia who have been inspired by Charles Leslie's writing on such topics as medical pluralism and the early emergence of what has become a globalized biomedicine, the social relations of therapy management, and the relationship between the politics of the state and discourse about the health of populations, illness, and medicine. The book also takes up lesser known aspects of Leslie's work: his contribution as an editor and the role he played in carrying the field forward; his ethics as a medical anthropologist committed to humanism and sensitive to racism and eugenics; and the passion he inspired in his co-workers and students.Charles Leslie is a remarkable and influential social scientist. New Horizons in Medical Anthropology is a fitting tribute to a sensitive scholar whose theories and codes of practice provide an essential guide to future generations of medical anthropologists.

New Horizons in Medical Anthropology is a festschrift in honor of Charles Leslie whose influential career helped shape this subfield of anthropology. This collection of cutting-edge essays explores medical innovation and medical pluralism at the turn of the 21st century. The book accomplishes two things: it reflects recent research by medical anthropologists working in Asia who have been inspired by Charles Leslie's writing on such topics as medical pluralism and the early emergence of what has become a globalized biomedicine, the social relations of therapy management, and the relationship between the politics of the state and discourse about the health of populations, illness, and medicine. The book also takes up lesser known aspects of Leslie's work: his contribution as an editor and the role he played in carrying the field forward; his ethics as a medical anthropologist committed to humanism and sensitive to racism and eugenics; and the passion he inspired in his co-workers and students.Charles Leslie is a remarkable and influential social scientist. New Horizons in Medical Anthropology is a fitting tribute to a sensitive scholar whose theories and codes of practice provide an essential guide to future generations of medical anthropologists.

In this lesson-packed book, Mark Nichter, one of the world’s leading medical anthropologists, summarizes what more than a quarter-century of health social science research has contributed to international health and elucidates what social science research can contribute to global health and the study of biopolitics in the future. Nichter focuses on our cultural understanding of infectious and vector-borne diseases, how they are understood locally, and how various populations respond to public health interventions. The book examines the perceptions of three groups whose points of view on illness, health care, and the politics of responsibility often differ and frequently conflict: local populations living in developing countries, public health practitioners working in international health, and health planners/policy makers. The book is written for both health social scientists working in the fields of international health and development and public health practitioners interested in learning practical lessons they can put to good use when engaging communities in participatory problem solving. Global Health critically examines representations that frame international health discourse. It also addresses the politics of what is possible in a world compelled to work together to face emerging and re-emerging diseases, the control of health threats associated with political ecology and defective modernization, and the rise of new assemblages of people who share a sense of biosociality. The book proposes research priorities for a new program of health social science research. Nichter calls for greater involvement by social scientists in studies of global health and emphasizes how medical anthropologists in particular can better involve themselves as scholar activists.

First Published in 1992.  The reader of this volume will see how a decade of new work has remade ethnomedicine into one of the livelier and more promising domains of anthropology. Nicthter's encompassing redefinition of the relationship of ethnomedicine to medical anthropology and his critical comments that introduce each chapter are bound to provoke discussion and response over the years to come. - Arthur Kleinman, MD Harvard Medical School.

Recognizing the significance of cultural aspects in the practice of medicine, this book places a strong emphasis on the social structure, customs, and history of the indigenous population and its ramifications on health care providers. The book also considers the econo-cultural influences on the way medicine is practiced. By including chapters that focus on health care's sudden advent as commodity and the microeconomic approach to public funding for health care facilities, the Nichters explore a world in which money and patients' expectations play an ever increasing role in the way health care is provided.