Exploring Medical Anthropology

by Donald Joralemon

This widely adopted text is a concise and engaging introduction to the field that presents competing theoretical perspectives in a balanced fashion, highlighting points of conflict and convergence.

Written in an accessible, jargon-free language, Exploring Medical Anthropology ’s concise length leaves room for instructors to supplement it with monographs of their own choosing. Concrete cases and the author’s personal research experiences are utilized to explain some of the discipline’s most important insights; such as that biology and culture matter equally in the human experience of disease and that medical anthropology can help to alleviate human suffering. An extensive glossary facilitates student learning of concepts and terms, while a list of suggested readings at the end of each chapter and an extensive bibliography encourage further exploration.

Genres: Anthropology, Medicine, Read For School, Nonfiction, Reference, Health

176 pages, Paperback

First published September 23, 1998

Reviews

[Krissy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise chapters made for good discussion. My medical anthropology class used this as its main text for the semester. I really enjoyed the book actually and am glad Dr. Emad assigned it. I particularly like that Joralemon argues that shamanism and organ transplantation can be studied in the same way. Tying together bio-medicine with shamanism and other such alternatives is positively delightful. Joralemon uses solid ethnographic data to get the points he's writing about across which also makes for interesting reading.

Also, (this is really besides the point but it caught my attention) I loved some of the pictures he chose to put in here. The SARS wedding photo in particular gave me pause.

[Shelly Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written, concise, and incredibly interesting. I chose this as the textbook for a medical anthropology honors course I teach, and it was perfect for this particular research project. There are probably more detailed and comprehensive textbooks out there for this topic, but for a one credit class this was perfect.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good introduction to Medical Anthropology. I'm using it in my course, along with AIDS and Accusation and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. I appreciate that it is relatively inexpensive ($22) for a textbook, it is brief and doesn't try to cover everything -- Joralemon gives grounding in the basic approaches and theories, examines a few cases in detail, gives great suggestions for further reading, and points you in the right direction to look at lots of things.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The two chapters on cholera -- and how to view the cholera epidemic in Peru from four different theoretical perspectives -- are GREAT!! I assign this book to my med anthro students JUST for those two chapters.

[Resa Boydston · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book is for my SO312; Culture, Health and Illness class. at times it is hard to read (stay focused with it) but it contains a ton of helpful information.

[Kerryn Armstrong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great textbooks for medical anthropology examples and case studies