Thomas Leatherman – författare

Medical Pluralism in the Andes is the first major collection of anthropological approaches to health in the Andes for over twenty years. Written in tribute to Libbet Crandon Malamuds pioneering work on Andean medicine, this readable, extensively illustrated and instructive book reflects the diversity of approaches in medical anthropology that have evolved during the past two decades. Capturing the intricacies of health practice within the context of Andean social history, cultural tradition, community and folklore, this is a remarkable and intimate chronicle of Andean culture and everyday life, which will appeal across a wide range of readers, from professional anthropologists to those interested in alternative medicines.

Medical Pluralism in the Andes is the first major collection of anthropological approaches to health in the Andes for over twenty years. Written in tribute to Libbet Crandon Malamuds pioneering work on Andean medicine, this readable, extensively illustrated and instructive book reflects the diversity of approaches in medical anthropology that have evolved during the past two decades. Capturing the intricacies of health practice within the context of Andean social history, cultural tradition, community and folklore, this is a remarkable and intimate chronicle of Andean culture and everyday life, which will appeal across a wide range of readers, from professional anthropologists to those interested in alternative medicines.

The study of health disparities has emerged as an important theme in public health and the social sciences, and efforts to eliminate health disparities are a major thrust of governments and nongovernmental organizations in the US and abroad. Initially, much work focused on identifying disparities with less emphasis on the contexts that create these disparities. An important shift over the past two decades has been the recognition that health disparities have their roots in social and economic inequalities. Biocultural anthropologists have been addressing issues of health inequities for decades in multiple environments and ethnographic contexts and have increasingly expanded their approaches to more directly focus on the important relationships between inequalities and health in global contexts. These more critical biocultural approaches to health have much to offer studies of health disparities by exploring the contexts of inequality and the embodied processes linking inequalities to biology and health in global-local contexts, demonstrating how large-scale forces and local-level lived realities 'get under the skin.' The papers collected here make theoretical, methodological and applied contributions, employing biocultural approaches to address inequalities and health disparities in a range of cultural contexts and, by exploring multiple dimensions of poverty and inequality, of food insecurity, health transitions, and the growing problems of global obesity and diabetes.