Medical Anthropology

Medical Anthropology is one of the Field's most rapidly expanding sub-disciplines. It employs anthropological theory and methods in the study of health, illness and healing in a cross-cultural perspective, and has practical applications to health care in Canada and abroad. Medical Anthropologists are interested in ethnomedicine, international health, comparative health systems, and may also work in clinical contexts. Medical anthropology courses taught by department faculty focus on such topics as cultural interpretations of illness, healing and disability, comparative medical systems, ethnomedical systems, globalization and the pharmaceuticalization of health, explanatory models, narrative representation of illness, the political economy of HIV/AIDS in Africa, the body and debates surrounding female genital mutilation/cutting, reproduction, structural violence and social suffering, maternal and child health, the cultural and social impact of the New Genetics, and other medical technologies on patients, their families and society. Our ethnographic focuses are Canada and the US, Northeastern and sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Melanesia.

To
Anthropological Archaeology
Biological Anthropology
Linguistic Anthropology
Museum Studies
Socio-Cultural Anthropology