Conceptions of the body are central not only to substantive work in medical anthropology, but also to the philosophical underpinnings of the entire discipline of anthropology, where Western assumptions about the mind and body, the individual and society, affect both theoretical viewpoints and research paradigms. These same conceptions also influence ways in which health care is planned and delivered in Western societies. In this article we advocate the deconstruction of received concepts about the body and begin this process by examining three perspectives from which the body may be viewed: (1) as a phenomenally experienced individual body-self; (2) as a social body, a natural symbol for thinking about relationships among nature, society, and culture; and (3) as a body politic, an artifact of social and political control. After discussing ways in which anthropologists, other social scientists, and people from various cultures have conceptualized the body, we propose the study of emotions as an area of inquiry that holds promise for providing a new approach to the subject.

The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology

he global triumph of capitalism at the millennium, its Second Coming, raises a number of conundrums for our understanding of history at the end of the century. Some of its corollaries—“plagues of the ‘new world order,’” Jacques Derrida (1994: 91) calls them, unable to resist apocalyptic imagery—have been the subject of clamorous debate. Others receive less mention. Thus, for example, populist polemics have dwelt on the planetary conjuncture, for good or ill, of “homogenization and difference” (e.g., Barber 1992); on the simultaneous, synergistic spiraling of wealth and poverty; on the rise of a “new feudalism,” a phoenix disfigured, of worldwide proportions (cf. Connelly and Kennedy 1994).1 For its part, scholarly debate has focused on the confounding effects of rampant

/pdf/millennial-capitalism-first-thoughts-on-a-second-coming-523n2dqgia.pdf

Millennial Capitalism: First Thoughts on a Second Coming

Many researchers have claimed that the emotion of disgust functions to protect us from disease. Although there have been several discussions of this hypothesis, none have yet reviewed the evidence in its entirety. The authors derive 14 hypotheses from a disease-avoidance account and evaluate the evidence for each, drawing upon research on pathogen avoidance in animals and empirical research on disgust. In all but 1 case, the evidence favors a disease-avoidance account. It is suggested that disgust is evoked by objects/people that possess particular types of prepared features that connote disease. Such simple disgusts are directly disease related, are acquired during childhood, and are able to contaminate other objects/people. The complex disgusts, which emerge later in development, may be mediated by several emotions. In these cases, violations of societal norms that may subserve a disease-avoidance function, notably relating to food and sex, act as reminders of simple disgust elicitors and thus generate disgust and motivate compliance. The authors find strong support for a disease-avoidance account and suggest that it offers a way to bridge the divide between concrete and ideational accounts of disgust.

Disgust as a disease-avoidance mechanism.

Objectives To draw on narrative interviews with patients with lung cancer and to explore their perceptions and experience of stigma Design Qualitative study Setting United Kingdom Participants 45 patients with lung cancer recruited through several sources Results Participants experienced stigma commonly felt by patients with other types of cancer, but, whether they smoked or not, they felt particularly stigmatised because the disease is so strongly associated with smoking Interaction with family, friends, and doctors was often affected as a result, and many patients, particularly those who had stopped smoking years ago or had never smoked, felt unjustly blamed for their illness Those who resisted victim blaming maintained that the real culprits were tobacco companies with unscrupulous policies Some patients concealed their illness, which sometimes had adverse financial consequences or made it hard for them to gain support from other people Some indicated that newspaper and television reports may have added to the stigma: television advertisements aim to put young people off tobacco, but they usually portray a dreadful death, which may exacerbate fear and anxiety A few patients were worried that diagnosis, access to care, and research into lung cancer might be adversely affected by the stigma attached to the disease and those who smoke Conclusion Patients with lung cancer report stigmatisation with far reaching consequences Efforts to help people to quit smoking are important, but clinical and educational interventions should be presented with care so as not to add to the stigma experienced by patients with lung cancer and other smoking related diseases

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/328/7454/1470.full.pdf

Stigma, shame, and blame experienced by patients with lung cancer: qualitative study.

The social construction of illness is a major research perspective in medical sociology. This article traces the roots of this perspective and presents three overarching constructionist findings. First, some illnesses are particularly embedded with cultural meaning—which is not directly derived from the nature of the condition—that shapes how society responds to those afflicted and influences the experience of that illness. Second, all illnesses are socially constructed at the experiential level, based on how individuals come to understand and live with their illness. Third, medical knowledge about illness and disease is not necessarily given by nature but is constructed and developed by claims-makers and interested parties. We address central policy implications of each of these findings and discuss fruitful directions for policy-relevant research in a social constructionist tradition. Social constructionism provides an important counterpoint to medicine’s largely deterministic approaches to disease and ...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0022146510383495

The Social Construction of Illness Key Insights and Policy Implications

considers the role of nurses and thinks that because they are an essential part of health care, they are accountable for their activities and not merely answerable to some higher authority. That means that they must adopt a critical attitude to others involved in health care and should address their minds to issues rather than accept the views of others. The final contribution, by David Roy, states that philosophers have a responsibility to the public to develop a system of values which will serve as a guide in dealing with these biomedical issues. He feels that universal ethical standards should be developed by reference to the nature of things rather than man whose nature is subject to radical change. These essays are ofa high standard and they point emphatically to the need for an interdisciplinary approach to the issues with which they seek to grapple. They should appeal to the lay and the profession alike, but the lay person may at times wonder where he has got to, when he finds one view convincingly presented, only to find it attacked in the immediately following pages. Perhaps he should not be discouraged by this, in that none of the essayists claims that the issues have simple solutions. It is hoped that these essays and others like them will be used by students of medicine, law and philosophy to their certain advantage. D J CUSINE

https://jme.bmj.com/content/medethics/7/1/45.full.pdf

James Mathers

Papers

Illness as Metaphor