In Singer and Baer’s book (2011), anthropology is viewed as a critical component of the medical sphere, helping to define reasons for a person’s health or non-health problems. In recent years, there has been a tendency to analyze not only local factors that may influence a person but also his or her social relationships. Consequently, “vertical links” connecting a person’s “social group to the larger regional, national, and global human society” are considered to be more critical with time passing (Singer & Baer, 2011, p. 39). Trotter (2019) tells a story of a Mexican folk remedy – arzagon, which locals believe to treat people for empacho but which, in fact, causes lead poisoning. The problem, therefore, has cultural origins, and the simple elimination of environmental sources of intoxication will not guarantee people’s health.
Drinking problems are considered from an individual point of view, and both doctors and ordinary people tend to believe that the causes are emotional immaturity, insecurity, and troubled relationship with parents in childhood. Alcoholism is usually associated with a behavioral disorder, a self-destructive attitude in personal life, while a person with drinking problems is labeled with the disease of alcoholism. However, in their article, Singer, Valentín, Baer, and Jia (1992) argue that remaining at the level of an individual actor means ignoring the environment and culture a person lives in. To really make sense of someone’s drinking (for example, Juan García from Puerto Rico in the article), one should consider a wider range of factors – historical, political-economic, and cultural causes of the problem.
Do you think that employing critical medical anthropology is necessary for defining and solving health problems? If yes, should it apply only to less-educated developing countries or to developed ones as well?
References
Singer, M., Valentín, F., Baer, H., & Jia, Z. (1992). Why does Juan García have a drinking problem? The perspective of critical medical anthropology. Medical Anthropology, 14(1), 77–108. Web.
Singer, M. & Baer, H. A. (2011). Introducing medical anthropology: A discipline in action (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.
Trotter, R. T. (2019). Anthropological praxis: Translating knowledge into action. In R. M. Wulff (Ed.), A case of lead poisoning from folk remedies in Mexican American communities (pp. 146-159). New York, NY: Routledge.