Suchergebnisse

AbstractAs members of the Mexican diaspora acculturate/assimilate to life in the United States they gain skills that help them improve their socioeconomic status and overcome barriers to the mainstream American healthcare system. Thus, we might expect better health among more acculturated Mexicans. However, most of the research conducted during the past 20 years shows that the health of Mexicans living in the United States deteriorates as acculturation increases. This suggests that certain health promoting aspects of Mexican culture are lost as migrants adapt to and adopt American ways of life. This paper is the first step in testing the hypothesis that declining health among acculturated people of Mexican descent is related to a loss of traditional medical knowledge.During an ethnographic study of women's medical knowledge in an unacculturated Mexican migrant community in Athens, Georgia, I observed many ways low‐income, undocumented migrants maintain good health. Migrant women encourage health‐promoting behaviors and treat sick family members with a variety of home remedies that appear to be effective according to chemical and pharmacological analyses. Additionally, migrant women in Athens learn how to navigate the American medical and social service systems and overcome barriers to professional healthcare services using information provided through social networks. Nevertheless, migrant women often prefer to treat sick family at home and indicated a preference for Mexican folk medicines over professional medical care in most situations.This case study suggests that migration and diaspora need not always lead to disease. The maintenance of a Mexican culture that is distinct from the rest of American society helps ensure that traditional medical knowledge is not lost, while the social networks that link Mexicans to each other and to their homeland help minimize threats to health, which are usually associated with migration. Thus, increased access to professional medical care may not improve the health of migrants if it comes with the loss of traditional medical knowledge.

AbstractIn anthropology, the body is theorized, manifested, and experienced in multiple ways that impact medical practice, social life, biopolitics, and spirituality. This article considers the role of 'dreadlocks' (matted hair) in the Rastafari spiritual body and, guided by the 'body multiple' concept, explores how the symbolic and performative nature of hair articulates with age and gender. Ethnographic data from the United Kingdom suggest the ways dreadlocks are groomed and/or covered vary widely, revealing diversity and changing meanings attributed to matted hair. By focusing on the spiritual aspects of hair, our work shows that dreadlocks and baldness are outward (visible) and inward (hidden) manifestations of a covenant with Jah (the Creator), rather than contrasting social or psychological statements. The hair symbolism debate in anthropology reveals limitations of universalist and reductionist approaches to understanding the human body. Our Rastafari material suggests the body multiple provides a better framework for interpreting (African‐inspired) spiritual hair.

Medical anthropology is concerned with both the causes and consequences of human sickness, and its various theoretical orientations can be grouped into four major approaches: medical ecology, critical medical anthropology, interpretative medical anthropology, and ethnomedicine. While medical anthropologists of all theoretical persuasions have examined why people get sick, the analysis and understanding of patterns of treatment has been largely confined to ethnomedicine. Historically, more emphasis has been placed on thepersonalisticor supernatural aspects of ethnomedical systems than onnaturalisticor empirical components. While this focus has produced valuable insights into the role of ritual and belief in healing, it has led to the impression that traditional medicine is primarily symbolic. Moreover, it ignores the theoretical bases of traditional healing strategies and the practical means by which most of the world heals itself, namely plants. Recently there has been more interest in the empirical character of ethnomedical systems, and in this paper we consider the role that medical ethnobiology has played in this shift of focus. We begin with a brief history of medical anthropology to illuminate why naturalistic medicine was neglected for so long. We then review exemplary research in two areas of medical ethnobiology – ethnophysiology and medical ethnobotany – that address the study of naturalistic aspects of medical systems. We conclude with suggestions for future research at the interface between medical ethnobiology and medical anthropology that will contribute to both fields.