Knowledge, Power, and Practice: The Anthropology of Medicine and Everyday Life(36 Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care)

These original essays, which combine theoretical argument with empirical observation, constitute a platform for future research in medical anthropology. Ranging in time and locale, the essays are based on research in historical and cultural settings. The contributors accept the notion that all knowledge is socially and culturally constructed and examine the contexts in which that knowledge is produced and practiced in medicine, psychiatry, epidemiology and anthropology.

Table of Contents:
Preface Part One The Cultural Construction of Childbirth Introduction to Part One 1 Traditional Birth Attendants in Rural North India: The Social Organization of Childbearing Roger Jeffery and Patricia M. Jeffery 2 Analysis of a Dialogue on Risks in Childbirth: Clinicians, Epidemiologists, and Inuit Women Patricia A. Kaufert and John O'Neil 3 Accounting for Amniocentesis Rayna Rapp Part Two The Production of Medical Knowledge Introduction to Part Two 4 "Learning Medicine": The Constructing of Medical Knowledge at Harvard Medical School Byron J. Good and Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good 5 A Description of How Ideology Shapes Knowledge of a Mental Disorder (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder) Allan Young 6 The Shape of Action: Practice in Public Psychiatry Lorna Amarasingham Rhodes Part Three Contested Knowledge and Modes of Understanding Introduction to Part Three 7 Lay Medical Knowledge in an African Context Tola Olu Pearce 8 Biomedical Psychiatry as an Object for a Critical Medical Anthropology Horacio Fabrega, Jr. 9 Double Standards of Treatment Evaluation Gilbert Lewis 10 Risk: Anthropological and Epidemiological Narratives of Prevention Ronald Frankenberg Part Four Constructing the Illness Experience Introduction to Part Four 11 Identity, Disability, and Schizophrenia: The Problem of Chronicity Sue E. Estroff 12 Social Aspects of Chagas Disease Roberto Briceflo-Leon Part Five Body Politics-Past and Present Introduction to Part Five 13 The Diseased Heart of Africa: Medicine, Colonialism, and the Black Body Jean Comaroff 14 The Politics of Mid-Life and Menopause: Ideologies for the Second Sex in North America and Japan Margaret Lock 15 The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies: Determinations of Self in Immune System Discourse Donna Haraway Contributors Index

About the Author :
Shirley Lindenbaum is Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York and author of Kuru Sorcery (1979). Margaret Lock is Professor of Medical Anthopology at McGill University and author of East Asian Medicine in Urban Japan (California, 1980).