Description
Book Synopsis Illness and misfortune more broadly are ubiquitous; thus, healing roles or professions are also universal. Ironically, however, little attention has been paid to those who heal or promote wellbeing. These come in many different guises: in some societies, healing is highly professional and specialized; in some cases, it is more preventative, in others more interventionist. Based on rich and wide-ranging ethnographic data and especially written for this volume, these essays look at how a great variety of health providers are perceived – from traditional healers to physicians, from diviners to nursing home providers. Conversely, the authors also ask how healers, or those concerned with wider matters of well being, view themselves and to what degree social attitudes differ in regard to who these people are, as well as their power, prestige and activities. As these essays demonstrate, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or state policy may all play formative roles in shaping the definition of health and wellbeing, how they are delivered, and the character and prestige of those who provide for our health and welfare in society.
Trade Review “Medical Identities is a welcome call to arms – we need to take medical identities seriously. There is more to healing and promotion of well-being than the health-seeking behaviours and experiences of patients, on the one hand, and the power-knowledge relations that bear medical professions, on the other.” • Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI)
Table of Contents Introduction: Working at Therapeutic Personhood
Kent Maynard
Chapter 1. General Practitioners in Britain and South Africa
Anne Digby
Chapter 2. Drug-providers in Cambodia
Ing-Britt Trankell and Jan Oveson
Chapter 3. Medical Identity in Cameroon
Kent Maynard
Chapter 4.Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity among Zulu Diviners
Gina Buijs
Chapter 5. Learning to be an Acupuncturist
Elisabeth Hsu
Chapter 6. Auxiliary Workers in a Nursing-home Hierarchy
Janette Davies
Chapter 7. The Cost of a Normal Birth
Jenny Littlewood
Notes on contributors
Index
