As a Human Biology major, I have always been very interested in the world of healthcare. When I was looking into different subfields of biological anthropology, I found Medical Anthropology to be the most interesting to me. It focuses on the current day issues in healthcare and how they relate to anthropology. The website that I found to be the most useful was the Medical Anthropology Quarterly.
The definition of medical anthropology is a field that combines social, cultural, biological, and linguistic anthropology to understand things like how diseases spread, prevention of sickness, and health of humans. Unlike some of the other subfields, I love how medical anthropology combines so many factors and uses all of them to focus on such an important thing in today’s world. This type of anthropology has the most impact to humans because it is involving their health and quality of life.
Diving deeper into this website, I found so many great articles about such relevant subjects in today’s society. One article I found that relates to a very relevant topic in the LGBTQ+ community is titled “A Capable Surgeon and a Willing Electrologist: Challenges to the Expansion of Transgender Surgical Care in the United States”. This article talked about how in the past this type of surgery was not well shared in the medical community. In recent years, this procedure is being more talked about and more surgeons are learning about this. Another article that is very relevant in today’s society is titled, “The Erosion of Rights to Abortion Care in the United States: A Call for a Renewed Anthropological Engagement with the Politics of Abortion”. This article focuses on the recent women’s rights of legal abortion and how that is related to anthropology. It not only focuses on the medical aspects, but also the social aspects that it is causing in America.
Not only do these articles focus on critical topics happening in the United States, they also focus on global issues in the medical field. Another great article I found was called “The Effects of Water Insecurity and Emotional Distress on Civic Action for Improved Water Infrastructure in Rural South Africa”. Medical Anthropology not only focuses on medical procedures, it also focuses on how the environment affects human health and rights. This article was interesting because it focused on water insecurity in South Africa and the emotional distress that it causes related to the people’s health.
Just using these articles as an example, it is very clear to me that medical anthropology focuses on very relevant topics that are happening today around the world. It combines how people today think and live and combines it with the way our ancestors were. There was such a wide variety of topics I found when looking at the articles. There was everything from aging to studies on HPV. This is why I find medical anthropology so interesting to read and learn about. Before learning about anthropology this week I thought of it as ancient and learning about cavemen. Once doing this research my idea of anthropology has expanded greatly and I found such an appreciation for it. I realized how important in, not only the medical field, but so many other fields it is in looking at relevant topics in today’s society.
Source: http://medanthroquarterly.org
Hi phill791! I am also a human biology major. I enjoyed that you picked a subsection of physical anthropology that relates to your major. I think the type of anthropology you wrote about is unique, because like you said is a combination of different types of anthropology. The articles and examples you provided helped the readers understand what medical anthropology, and how it contributes to the broader theme of anthropology. The article I found most interesting was “The Effects of Water Insecurity and Emotional Distress on Civic Action for Improved Water Infrastructure in Rural South Africa.” I decided to read it online, and I found it provided great information on how their environment contributed to different health problems and their development. This type of article really shows the connection between medical anthropology and anthropology itself.
Hello,
I enjoyed reading your post and appreciated your insight. I like reading other’s posts because everyone came up with different subfields that I have never heard of before! Like you, I am also a Human Bio major! I actually chose medical anthropology to look into for this week as well, but I found a different website. I am impressed that you looked even deeper into the topic than I did, and you found some interesting articles that you discussed in your blog post for this week. The article about the LGBTQ+ community sounds very interesting to me and I might even read it tonight. In addition, your article you found about abortion also sounds interesting because it’s seemingly a hot topic in our society right now. Thanks for sharing!