Description
Nowadays a plethora of treatment technologies is available to the consumer, each employing a variety of concepts of the body, self, sickness and healing. This volume explores the options, strategies and consequences that are both relevant and necessary for patients and practitioners who are manoeuvring this medical plurality. Although wideranging in scope and covering areas as diverse as India, Ecuador, Ghana and Norway, central to all contributions is the observation that technologies of healing are founded on socially learned and to some extent fluid experiences of body and self.
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Medical pluralism is a hallmark of the postmodern world, argue Johannessen (public health, U. of Southern Denmark) and Lazar (medical anthropology, Semmelweis U., Budapest). They introduce a dozen case studies by international contributors on the diverse forms of medical practice that coexist within cultures from South London to South America, and their differing but socially learned and fluid concepts of the body, soul, illness, and healing. These include Western doctors who practice alternative medicine. Published in conjunction with the European Association of Social Anthropologists, this volume would be suitable for courses on culturally competent medicine. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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