Critical Medical Anthropology

Perspectives in and from Latin America

Edited by Jennie Gamlin, Sahra Gibbon, Paola M. Sesia, Lina Berrío

Publication date:

12 March 2020

Publisher

UCL Press

Dimensions:

234x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781787355842

Critical Medical Anthropology presents inspiring work from scholars doing and engaging with ethnographic research in or from Latin America, addressing themes that are central to contemporary Critical Medical Anthropology (CMA). This includes issues of inequality, embodiment of history, indigeneity, non-communicable diseases, gendered violence, migration, substance abuse, reproductive politics and judicialisation, as these relate to health.

The collection of ethnographically informed research, including original theoretical contributions, reconsiders the broader relevance of CMA perspectives for addressing current global healthcare challenges from and of Latin America. It includes work spanning four countries in Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala and Peru) as well as the trans-migratory contexts they connect and are defined by. By drawing on diverse social practices, it addresses challenges of central relevance to medical anthropology and global health, including reproduction and maternal health, sex work, rare and chronic diseases, the pharmaceutical industry and questions of agency, political economy, identity, ethnicity, and human rights.

Praise for Critical Medical Anthropology

‘Successfully provides a roadmap to guide scholars beyond their language barriers and engage with literature outside of English.[Critical Medical Anthropology] makes important contributions to CMA and related fields. We look forward to the fruitful work and collaboration it inspires.'
American Journal of Human Biology

‘A substantial, complex and multi-faceted volume.’
Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research

'A necessary contribution [and] an important reference in studies.'
Campos

'Critical Medical Anthropology offers thought-provoking interventions to understandings of health, illness and healthcare. It extends a legacy of critical anthropological research, inviting and stimulating south-north dialogue, while generating inspiring new thinking at the intersections of health, social justice, human rights and political economy.'
Ciara Kierans, University of Liverpool

Preface: Critical medical anthropology in Latin America: Trends, contributions, possibilities

Eduardo Menéndez

Introduction

Paola M. Sesia, Jennie Gamlin, Sahra Gibbon and Lina Berrio

Part I: Intercultural health: Critical approaches and current challenges

1. Anthropological engagement and interdisciplinary research: The critical approach in indigenous health in Brazil

Esther Jean Langdon and Eliana E. Diehl

2. Critical anthropologies of maternal health: Theorising from the field in Mexican indigenous communities

Jennie Gamlin and Lina Berrio

3. Susto, the anthropology of fear, and critical medical anthropology in Mexico and Peru

Frida Jacobo Herrera and David Orr

4. Post-coital pharmaceuticals and abortion ambiguity: Avoiding unwanted pregnancy using emergency contraception and misoprostol in Lima, Peru

Rebecca Irons

Part II: Globalisation and contemporary challenges of border spaces and biologised difference

5. Migrant trajectories and health experiences: Processes of health/illness/care for drug use among migrants in the Mexico-United States bbrder region

Olga Lidia Olivas Hernández

6. Border Spaces: Stigma and social vulnerability to HIV-AIDS among Central American male migrants at the Mexico–
Guatemala border

Rubén Muñoz, Carmen Fernández Casanueva, Sonia Morales Miranda and Kimberly C. Brouwer

7. The ethno-racial basis of chronic diseases: Re-thinking race and ethnicity from a critical epidemiological perspective

Melania Calestani and Laura Montesi

Part III: Political economy and judicialisation

8. Consultation rooms annexed to pharmacies: The Mexican private, low cost, health service system

Rosa María Osorio Carranza

9. Naming, framing and shaming through obstetric viloence: A critical approach to the judicialisation of maternal health rights violations in Mexico

Paola M. Sesia

10. Judicialisation and the politics of rare disease in Brazil: Re-thinking activism and inequalities

Waleska Aureliano and Sahra Gibbon

Afterword

Claudia Fonseca

Index