[Short Course] An Introduction to Medical Anthropology - University of Sao Paulo

As visiting faculty at the University of Sao Paulo, I gave a short course entitled "An Introduction to Medical Anthropology" from December 4-9, 2019, in which I offered a broader view of health, focusing on the ways people make sense of health, illness, and bodily experiences - and discussing some contemporary debates within the sub-discipline with particularly relevance to the Global South.

The course covered four modules - " Situating culture in health, situating health in culture: Basic concepts in medical anthropology";  "The human life cycle: An anthropological perspective"; "The normal and the pathological"; and "The ‘lived body’: Exploring everyday technologies of the self".

In the first module, the class discussed the emergence of medical anthropology as an important subfield as well as foundational concepts like medical pluralism, the three sectors of healthcare, and explanatory models of disease. In the second module, we revisited the classic anthropological concept of ‘rites of passage’ to reflect on the different stages of the human life cycle.

Meanwhile, the third module discussed how medical knowledge and practice have structured modern notions of normality, deviance, identity, and community.

Finally, the fourth module reflected on ‘body projects’ in late modernity - from plastic surgery in Korea to skin whitening in the Philippines - and how these practices are situated in both global and local contexts.