In the journals

A brief update on journal articles and special issues of potential interest to our readers:

The latest issue of Anthropological Quarterly includes two interesting special sections: “From inscription to incorporation: the body in literacy studies” and “Technoscience in Islamic societies.” While the print version of this issue is out, it is not yet available in electronic form on the journal’s website at Project Muse.

Medical Anthropology continues its series of editorials with a piece by Sarah Pinto: Crises of Commitment: Ethics of Intimacy, Kin, and Confinement in Global Psychiatry. It also includes an article by Mattew Wolf-Meyer on the pharmaceuticalization of sleep deprivation and one by Jongyoung Kim on Korean medicine.

Finally, the new issue of Transcultural Psychiatry (full disclosure: I work on this journal and co-authored the introduction for this issue with Laurence Kirmayer) is a special issue on Psychopharmacology in a Globalizing World. The issue includes articles by a couple of our contributors here at Somatosphere: Kalman Applbaum describes how pharmaceutical corporations have turned treatment noncompliance into a business opportunity; and Michael Oldani examines the entanglement of family ties and pharmaceutical prescriptions among Aboriginal children in Manitoba. Also, David Healy explores how the dominance of randomized controlled trials in psychiatry has facilitated “guideline capture” by pharmaceutical companies. Ian Gold and Lauren Olin examine discussions on the relationship between psychopharmacology and the self and argue that “antidepressants are very likely to have significant effects on personhood” and that “we are in need of new ways of thinking about the self and its pathologies.” Sumeet Jain and Sushrut Jadhav trace the journey of psychotropic medication from policy-making to clinical practice in a rural community mental health program in northern India. Stefan Ecks and Soumita Basu examine claims about how and why antidepressant use has increased so rapidly across the world, by focusing on the (largely “informal”) means by which fluoxetine–and prescriptions for it–has spread throughout India. Jerry Floersch and colleagues report on North American adolescents’ experiences with psychotropic medication. And finally, the issue includes the article by Annette Leibing on Alzheimer medication which Kalman discussed in his recent post.