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Unit of study_
ANTH2627: Medical Anthropology
2024 unit information
Medical anthropology is the study of health, illness and healing and how they are shaped by historical, social, cultural, political and economic forces. This unit examines different understandings, experiences and treatment of illness across cultures from the Global North to the Global South. Topics include mental health, symbolism in healing, health promotion, structural violence, drug addiction, the medicalisation of women’s bodies, obesity, and infectious diseases, including Covid-19.
Unit details and rules
Managing faculty or University school:
Arts and Social Sciences
| Study level | Undergraduate |
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| Academic unit | Anthropology |
| Credit points | 6 |
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Prerequisites:
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12 credit points at 1000 level in Anthropology or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Gender Studies |
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Corequisites:
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None |
| Prohibitions:
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ANTH2027 |
| Assumed knowledge:
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None |
At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:
- LO1. understand the key concepts anthropologists use to describe and analyze the social and cultural meanings of health and illness
- LO2. know and understand the interrelationships between social forces, cultural values, the environment and a person's health and wellbeing
- LO3. know and understand how social, political and economic forces contribute to human suffering, sickness and disease
- LO4. read ethnographies in medical anthropology critically, identify a scholar's theoretical perspective, and appreciate the relative strengths and limitations of different analytic and interpretive approaches for the specific questions asked in medical anthropology
- LO5. synthesize qualitative observations of people's thinking, behaviour, and their experience of health and illness with similar cases and with theoretical frameworks to make generalizations about the nature, causes and consequences of health and illness.
Unit availability
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Modes of attendance (MoA)
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