April 11, 2024 <minato-nakazawa@people.kobe-u.ac.jp>

Medical Anthropology (1) See, https://minato.sip21c.org/medanth/
Health is affected by cultural factors: It's largely varying over the world.
Approaches to understand culture have been developed in the cultural anthropology studies.
Medical Anthropology is a relatively new discipline among the cultural anthropology.
Bases of medical anthropology:
Folk medicine, ethnomedicine - related with cosmology, how the people perceive the world
Traditional medicine - related with ethnology, ethology, how the people have behaved
Cultural relativism: Comparison among societies
between traditional vs modern
between developing and developed
between local and global
Standard textbooks ever published (already translated to Japanese except Helman's book):
1. Foster G, Anderson B (1978) Medical Anthropology. Alfred Knopf., NY: Focused on "pros and cons" ofnon-Western medicine. Comparing Western with Non-Western worlds. Effective framework in the past,insufficient now, because of increasing importance of cultural mixture.
2. McElroy A, Townsend PK (1985) Medical Anthropology in Ecological Perspective. Westview Press,
Boulder: Paying special attention to modification and adjustment for individuals or population to survive
under any specific environment, and "adaptation"
3. Helman C (1994) Culture, Health and Illness: An Introduction for Health Professionals, 3rd Ed.,
Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford: Based on enormous episodes and case reports from worldwide societies
4. Strathern A, Stewart PJ (1999) Curing and Healing - Medical Anthropology in Global Perspective.
Carolina Academic Press: Concise and well-organized textbook.
Debates to deeply understand topics without any clear answer by achieving
1. to have a range of good arguments and rebuttals
2. to develop these in clear, detailed and analytical way
3. to deliver them persuasively
There are many ways for debates
We apply "Mace Format",
1. Involving two teams with two speakers on each side.
2. First proposition speaker delivers a 7-minute speech
3. First opposition speaker delivers a 7-minute speech
4. Second proposition speaker delivers a 7-minute speech
5. Second opposition speaker delivers a 7-minute speech
6. Floor debate: Members of the audience make brief points
7. Opposition summary speaker delivers a 4-minute summary speech8. Proposition summary speaker delivers a 4-minute summary speech
Theme and basic information are given and 3 participants are assigned for each (proposition and opposition) teamat the end of the class of previous week. Both teams have to prepare the speech for 1 week. Preparing handouts
and/or slides is recommended. The debate itself should be chaired by one of the participants.
After the summary speeches, all participants judge the winner side using voting of Zoom.
* Theme for 18 April is "Is folk medicine (some kinds of herbal medicine, putting heated leak on the throat toreduce sore throat, visiting shrine 100 times to pray for severe disease patient, and so on) beneficial in Japan?"[Prop side] Yes [Opp side] No
ReferencesWinkelman M (2009) Culture and Health: Applying Medical Anthropology. Jossey-Bass, John-Wiley and Sons.
Debbie Newman, Ben Woolgar, ed. (2014) Pros and Cons: A Debater's Handbook. 19th ed., Routledge.