State vs. Culture or State 'and' Culture vs. the Individual Body: A review analysis

In: Health, Culture and Society, Band 8, Heft 2, S. 27-36

Abstract

This paper reflects on the dichotomy of state and culture through 'certain groups of people', impacting their behaviour and wants towards their own health. Analysis commences with a brief commentary on pre-independence India, whereby the rhetoric of nationalism was imprinted on individual bodies through the call for maintaining the health of a nation. This argument is then extended to include the present day-scenario of the state, whereby, the state sees itself as something beyond the individual; where it is the hub of 'know-how' of maintaining its population, yet at the same time distant from it. Second section presents the control of culture through community on the bodies of individual members (women). The two arguments are based on the review of an in-depth study by Jeffery and Jeffery (2010) in a village in Uttar Pradesh on the perceptions of the village population on national health policies. The article is concluded, with the necessity to understand and discover discourses of not state vs. culture (or community), but also of state and culture vs. agency vis-à-vis health and health care provisions.K