Introducing Health Anthropology: A Discipline in Action: Merrill Singer: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Introducing Health Anthropology

A Discipline in Action

Textbook

Introducing Health Anthropology

A Discipline in Action

Textbook

Description

With a new title that reflects the broad scope and primary concerns of the field, Introducing Health Anthropology: A Discipline in Action, Fourth Edition, provides students with a first look at the dynamic discipline of medical and health anthropology. The narrative is guided by four unifying themes. First, health anthropologists are heavily involved in the process of helping to better understand and change the world through their work in applied projects, policy initiatives, and advocacy. Second, the book presents the fundamental importance of culture and social relationships in health and sickness by demonstrating that experienced illness and diagnosed disease involve complex biosocial processes and that resolving them requires attention to a range of factors beyond biology. Third, through an examination of health inequality, the book highlights the need for research and analyses that move beyond cultural or even ecological models of health toward comprehensive and holistic biosocial frameworks. Finally, the authors emphasize that physical and mental health are intimately related to the health of the environment on which humans depend for air, food, and the other resources that make life possible. Introducing Health Anthropology gives students the tools to rethink how to achieve healthier populations, effective and fully accessible healthcare systems, and a sustainable world.

New to this Edition:
· New Chapter 4, “Human Evolution and Health,” examines the respective roles of genetics and sociocultural factors in health to navigate the welter of public misinformation on genetic determinism, race, and sex and gender minorities
· Significantly expanded discussion of reproductive health, sex and gender, and gender equity throughout the book reflects current and controversial issues in the U.S.
· Up-to-date examination of the relationship of climate change to health and social wellbeing offers students insights on how our physical world is changing and the causes of those changes
· Discussion of the global impact of COVID-19 throughout the text explores the enduring changes wrought by the pandemic on human societies

Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Anthropology of Health
Introduction and Overview
Encountering Health Anthropology
Three Case Studies in Applied Health Anthropology
Practical and Theoretical Contributions of Health Anthropology
Defining Health Anthropology
History of Health Anthropology
Health Anthropology Theories
Chapter 2: What Health Anthropologists Do and How They Do It
Introduction and Overview
Three Settings, Three Case Studies, Three Health Anthropologists
A Case Study
What Health Anthropologists Study
Conducting Research: A Peculiarly Anthropological Approach
Research Methods: The Anthropological Approach to Knowledge Generation
Health Anthropology in Use
The Health Anthropology Crystal Ball
Chapter 3: Understanding Health, Illness, and Disease
Introduction and Overview
Conceptions of Health and Illness
Sufferer Experience
Illness Narratives
Embodied Health Experience
Healer versus Sufferer Conception of Disease
Chapter 4: Human Evolution and Health
Introduction and Overview
The Roots of Evolutionary Health
Linkages, Trade-Offs, and Thrifty Genes
Migration and the Genetics of Health
The Out-of-Africa Intrusion
Living in the Clouds
Epigenetics
Socioeconomic Factors
The Genetics of Sexuality
Conclusion
Chapter 5: Ethnomedicine: The Worlds of Treatment and Healing
Introduction and Overview
Approaching Ethnomedicine
Indigenous and Folk Medicine Systems
An Evolutionary Model of Disease Theories and Healing Systems
Case Study: Are the Therapeutic Aspects of Religion Something That Partially Address Refugee Health Problems?
Biomedicine as the Predominant Ethnomedicine in Modern Societies
Chapter 6: Plural Medical Systems: Complexity, Complementarity, and Conflict
Introduction and Overview
A Case Study of Medical Pluralism in a Rural Area in a Developing Society: The Altiplano of Bolivia
A Case Study of Medical Pluralism in an Urban Setting of a Developing Society: A View from Central Java
A Case Study of Medical Pluralism in a Developed Society: The Australian Dominative Medical System
Typologies of Plural Medical Systems
New Directions in the Study of Medical Pluralism
Chapter 7: Health Disparity, Health Inequality
Introduction and Overview
What Is Health Disparity?
Health Disparity in the United States
Gasping for Breath
Causes of Health Disparity: Lifestyle versus Social Inequality
Biology of Poverty
Insuring Disease
Culturally Competent Care
Health and Social Disparities Cross-Culturally
Addressing Health Disparities
Pushing Back on Health Disparities
“Race” and Health Disparity
Chapter 8: Health and the Environment: Toward a Healthier World
Introduction and Overview
Medical Ecology and Critical Health Anthropology on the Environment
Health and the Environment in the Past
Health and the Environment Today
The Political Ecology of Cancer
The Impact of Private Motor Vehicles on Health
The Impact of Airplanes on Health
The Political Ecology of AIDS: Assessing a Contemporary Syndemic
Chapter 9: The Biopolitics of Life: Biotechnology, Biocapital, and Bioethics
Introduction and Overview
Critical Health Anthropology and Biotechnology
Science, Nature, and Culture
Reproductive Technologies
Divisible Bodies
Bringing the Lab into the Field: Anthropology and the Neurosciences
Molecular Biotechnologies: Tiny Pieces, Giant Infrastructures
The Story of hGH-Growing up Growth Hormone
The Culture of PCR
Visualization Technologies
When Technologies Combine
Ancestry, Families, and Genetics: Biotechnology and Belonging
Summary
Chapter 10: Strategies and Visions for a Healthier World
Introduction and Overview
Global Capitalism
Democratic Eco-Socialism as a Pathway for a Healthier World
Democratic Eco-Socialism as a Pathway to Planetary Health
How to Go from A to B
Health Anthropology as an Action-Oriented Endeavor
Source Material for Students
Glossary
References
Index
About the Authors

Product details

Published	Mar 26 2025
Format	Paperback
Edition	4th
Extent	342
ISBN	9781538187289
Imprint	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Illustrations	24 BW Photos, 7 Tables, 12 Textboxes
Dimensions	Not specified
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

“Singer, Baer, Long, and Pavlotski converse with enduring and current concerns, themes, and even labels in the context of novel disciplinary paradigms in this richly detailed and nuanced updated edition, presented with case studies accessible to contemporary scholars and students.”

Nicola Bulled, University of Connecticut
“A foundational text for understanding how cultural dimensions of human suffering and healing relate to local and global social inequalities. The case studies foster critical reflection of plural medical systems, offering insight into how access to vital resources shape human responses to the world's most pressing health conditions.”

Michael C. Ennis-McMillan, Skidmore College
“Merrill Singer and colleagues' timely text is a thoughtful, detailed consideration of historical and current theoretical and methodological practices in health anthropology. The authors draw on their decades of experience to critically inspect the complexities of different medical systems, particularly from a health inequity, biopolitical, and political ecology lens.”

Shir Ginzburg, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
“A classic orientation to an applied field, this book puts the historical praxis of understanding society and health at the center.”

Emily Mendenhall, Georgetown University