A significant update of the 1990 classic state-of-the-art handbook on medical anthropology. With new chapters on AIDS, psychology and emotion, nutrition, and bioethics, the text reflects the changes in medical anthropological theory and practice since the late 1980s. Chapters from the first edition are revised to reflect current trends and to include recent references. This work demonstrates the creative expansion and diversity in the field, amidst efforts to explore the individual sickness experience in the context of local cultures and global political and economic dynamics.

A significant update of the 1990 classic state-of-the-art handbook on medical anthropology. With new chapters on AIDS, psychology and emotion, nutrition, and bioethics, the text reflects the changes in medical anthropological theory and practice since the late 1980s. Chapters from the first edition are revised to reflect current trends and to include recent references. This work demonstrates the creative expansion and diversity in the field, amidst efforts to explore the individual sickness experience in the context of local cultures and global political and economic dynamics.

This benchmark collection of cross-cultural essays on reproduction and childbirth extends and enriches the work of Brigitte Jordan, who helped generate and define the field of the anthropology of birth. The authors' focus on authoritative knowledge--the knowledge that counts, on the basis of which decisions are made and actions taken--highlights the vast differences between birthing systems that give authority of knowing to women and their communities and those that invest it in experts and machines.

Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge offers first-hand ethnographic research...

This book examines the factors influencing women's choices of obstetrical care in a Bariba community in the People's Republic of Benin, West Africa. When selecting a research topic, I decided to investigate health care among the Bariba for several reasons. First, I had served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in northern Benin (then Dahomey) and had established a network of contacts in the region. In addition, I had worked for a year as assistant manager of a pharmacy in a northern town and had become interested in the pattern of utilization of health care services by urban residents. This...

Reproduction, Globalization, and the State conceptualizes and puts into practice a global anthropology of reproduction and reproductive health. Leading anthropologists offer new perspectives on how transnational migration and global flows of communications, commodities, and biotechnologies affect the reproductive lives of women and men in diverse societies throughout the world. Based on research in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Western Europe, their fascinating ethnographies provide insight into reproduction and reproductive health broadly conceived to encompass population control,...