For my doctoral research, I interviewed family members living with a loved one with early-onset dementia, a diagnosis that one receives under the age of 65. Jans, not his real name, was the fourth person I interviewed in April 2015. Since he lived in a remote village in the east of the Netherlands, we met at a train station to …
Recently the Minister of Health of Trinidad and Tobago explained the problem of chronic disease in the country: “The population do not listen to the message we are sending out – love yourself, eat right, exercise and decrease your sugar and salt intake.”[i] The exhortation to “love yourself” in a disciplined approach to health suggests the curious place of …
The so-called moral economy of the poor has been defined as the coming together of “a consistent traditional view of the social norms and obligations, of the proper economic functions of several parties within the community” (Thompson 1971: 79).
This particular angle on the construct of the moral economy, deriving primarily from historical, sociological, and anthropological research among “pre-industrialized” and …
Duke University Press, 2012. 296 pages, US$23.95
Faith Wilding’s 1972 installation Crocheted Environment (Womb Room). The “twisted” “maternal melodrama” of New York cabaret performers Kiki and Herb. A memoir exploring academic anguish, the comfort of familiar bed linen, exhaustion and the sustenance of swimming. Saidiya Hartman’s Lose your Mother: A Journey …
As I’ve written about on this site before, one of the best short programs for anyone interested in culture and mental health is the Summer School in Social and Cultural Psychiatry held annually at McGill. The course at the center of the curriculum is “Cultural Psychiatry: A Critical Introduction” which consists primarily of lectures by Laurence Kirmayer, Allan Young…
In light of the upcoming “Emotions, Health, and Well-Being” conference (to be held September 10-12, 2012, at Queen Mary University of London), Social History of Medicine has compiled a virtual issue of relevant articles from across the years, currently online and available through the end of October 2012. Along with a brief introduction by Colin Jones, the issues …
Science, Medicine, and Anthropology