DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
FALL 2006
ANT. 348Y THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF HEALTH
FALL SHORT ESSAY TOPICS
NOTES: PLEASE READ CAREFULLY:
1. Choose a topic from the list below and write an essay of minimum 5, to maximum 8
pages [double- spaced, 12 point type] plus references. Deadline, Wednesday, Nov.
22, 2006. A schedule of late penalties will be posted. These topics are drawn from the
Fall lectures and readings. A similar assignment will be posted for the Winter Term.
2. Be sure to consult the Anthropology Department Essay style sheet in citing references or
adopt the style of the American Anthropologist (eg. Smith 1999). Footnotes should not
be used for references.
3. In order to distribute the topics equitably, and ensure that books are available for all, a
maximum of six [6] students will be allowed to pursue an individual topic.
4. Approval will be on a first-come first-served basis. Please make your choices known by
submitting on a full sheet of paper (not a scrap) your name and the date and the number
and short title of the topic you have chosen. Each student should put down a first,
second, and third choice.
5. These should be handed in during class to Prof. Lee. Students will be notified of
approved topics within a week (i.e. by the week of Oct. 4th or 11th). Unless otherwise
noted all students will have their first choice.
6. Students are welcome to consult Prof. Lee during office hours (Wednesdays 3-5, Room
105B New College) for additional reference material on specific essay topics.
7. In every essay, students should make a careful assessment of their sources, especially
if they are non-scholarly, mainstream media, i.e. accounts by participants in the events.
Sources need to be scrutinized for biases before they can be utilized in a scholarly
essay. Not all biased sources are necessarily useless. On the contrary they may be
more useful after their bias is acknowledged and taken into account.
Here is a partial list of journal resources which contain articles on many of the topics
below:
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Social Science and Medicine
Medical Anthropology
Health Care for Women International
Human Organization
Culture, Health and Sexuality
Medical Anthropology Quarterly
Health Transition Review
Health Policy and Planning
Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry
Culture and Medicine
In a short essay of this nature it is expected that you will employ on-line resources as
well as print. Be sure to cite both kinds of sources with care.
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ESSAY TOPICS 2006-2007
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THE TOPICS
1. Adult onset diabetes is a major health problem in aboriginal populations in Canada
and the U.S. Critically review the literature on one aspect of this problem and discuss
one of the following:
a. biocultural historical and social context of the disease
b. cultural constructionist perspectives on the disease
c. how indigenous activism has sprung up to meet the challenges.
2. Medical Pluralism. Pick a country or a subnational group and do a brief review of the
traditional and alternative medical/healing systems coexisting with biomedicine. In what
ways do these alternative medical systems support and reinforce or contradict and
undermine the so-called “modern, western biomedicine”? Joseph Bastien’s (1992) offers
one possible model for this essay, but there are many others.
3. Health and the Neolithic. What light has recent archaeology and physical anthropology
shed on the health and nutritional status of prehistoric peoples? Apply some of these
recent findings to support or refute on medical grounds, Jared Diamond’s often-quoted
statement that: “The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a
better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.”
4. Boyd Eaton, Marjorie Shostak and Melvin Konner have written The Paleolithic
Prescription, a book which documents hunter-gatherer nutrition, lifestyle, and disease
burden. Drawing on your survey/review of he work and critical reactions to it, write an
appreciation of The Paleolithic Prescription that addresses both the strong and weak
points of the book.
5-9. Critical Medical Anthropology (CMA) attempts to place health and illness within the
larger context of political economy, history and society. It is the view of CMA that illness
is not just a biological condition but needs to be understood on the level of the social
body and the body politic as well as the individual body. Drawing on the works of ONE of
the researchers mentioned write a brief critical essay on the work chosen:
5. Homelessness - Ida Susser, Rae Bridgman, Dara Culhane
6. Smoking - Mark Nichter, Peter Pringle, or Kenyon Stebbins
7. Alcohol - Mac Marshall, Merrill Singer, Frederick Engels, Robin Room
8. Illegal Drugs - Phillippe Bourgois, Lester Grinspon, Narconon, Alfred McCoy
9. Third World Poverty - Nancy Scheper-Hughes,
10. Alcoholics Anonymous – Briefly discuss the founding, history, and mode of operation
of this unusual experiment in non-medical, non-commercial addiction rehabilitation. What
features set these organizations apart from others working in the same field? What
strengths have enabled AA to successfully resist encroachments by the capitalist
system, or has it?
11-18. AIDS in Africa. Over 70 per cent of all the world’s AIDS cases are found in subSaharan Africa. Consulting various sources (printed and on-line), write a brief essay on
one of the following topics. You may choose to focus on a single country or draw
material from several countries.
11. The state of ARV rollout in Africa; the role of the Treatment Action Campaign
(TAC) in South Africa.
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12. Mother to child transmission, (MTCT) including the issue of breastfeeding and
short-course Nevirapine ARV Therapy.
13. How are African universities and their student bodies responding to the AIDS
crisis? Are sports programs an effective vehicle for AIDS messages?
14. Commercial sex workers (CSW) and their role in the AIDS epidemic.
15. How did Uganda manage to reverse the rate of HIV infection?
16. Gender power and AIDS; the acceptability and use of the female condom. Or the
role of men’s movements in addressing AIDS, such as Namibia’s NAMEC.
17. Positive Living: PLWAs overcoming AIDS stigma as a force for change.
18. Sexual Diversity in Africa: Is it being taken into account in the fight against AIDS?
19.-34. AIDS Work by individual researchers: In writing your essay you could choose to
focus on the work of one of the major figures in the African AIDS field. Write a description of
the AIDS research and the positions taken of one of the following authors:
19. Tony Barnett,
20. Margaret Bentley,
21. John Caldwell,
22. Catherine Campbell,
23. Douglas Feldman,
25. Edward Green,
26. Daniel Halperin,
27. Amy Kaler,
28. Ezekiel Kalipeni,
29. Suzanne LeClerc-Madlala,
30. Robert Lorway,
31. Brooke Schoepf,
32. Ida Susser,
33. Douglas Webb,
34. Alan Whiteside.
35.-43. Watchdogs and Whistleblowers: What’s Wrong with Big Pharma. Transnational
pharmaceutical companies are among the largest corporations in the world. There is a
growing critical literature exploring the ethical, political, and economic dimensions of the drug
industry and its complex relations with doctors, patients, and governments. The film “Big
Bucks, Big Pharma” argues that company policies and practices are driven more by profits
than public health. Drawing on the recent statements and writings by critics featured in the film
such as
35. Marcia Angell (2004. The Truth about the Drug Companies: How they Deceive us and
What to do about it. New York: Random House)
Or consulting writings and online statements by the following, review some aspect of the case
put forward by one of them:
36. Rob Goodman
37. Gene Carbona,
38. Elizabeth Preston
39. Kathy Greider,
You are welcome to come to class on the day of the showing and record the audio portion.
Alternately, you may draw upon the published work of one of the following whistleblowers:
40. Abramson, John 2004. Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine.
New York: Harper-Collins.
41. Hadler, Nortin 2004. The Last Well Person: How to Stay Well Despite the Health Care
System. Montreal: McGill-Queens Press.
42. Krimsky, Sheldon 2003. Science in the Private Interest: Hast the Lure of Profits Corrupted
Biomedical Research?. Lanham MD: Rowan and Littlefield.
43. Moynihan, Raymond and Alan Cassels 2005. Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest
Pharmaceutical Companies are Turning Us all into Patients. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre.
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44.Health and Income Differences and the “Health Olympics.” Drawing on the work of
Stephen Bezruchka, Clyde Hertzman, and others, examine the recent work in critical
epidemiology which links levels of health and well-being to socio-economic status. Discuss
how an indicator of wealth differences -- such as the Gini coefficient-- significantly correlates
with health status.
45-51 Medicalization. One of the major trends in contemporary society is the bringing under
the domain of biomedicine areas of life and human behavior which had formerly been
considered as lying outside the purview of medicine. Examples, often-cited, of
medicalization include such areas as:
45. Childbirth, (the replacement of midwives by obstetricians and back to midwives)
46. Hyperactivity in children, (the story of Ritalin)
47. Stress management, (yoga and meditation in doctors’ offices)
48. Substance abuse, drugs and alcohol (Philippe Bourgois)
49. The treatment of emotional distress and depression, (a look at the DSM and the
research of David Healey).
50) Fibromyalgia (where medicalization is resisted by the insurance companies
51) Another example of your choosing (but check with Professor Lee first).
Choose one of these areas of life and write a brief essay exploring the way an problem
was dealt with before it was medicalized, and the process by which it became part of
medical practice. You should rely primarily on library sources but if feasible, you could
augment these by interviews with practitioners.
52.-55. Shamanism, Traditional Healers and Western Medicine. What is the nature of the
relationship between traditional healers and biomedical services in non-Western countries?
Choose a particular country and investigate whether government health services have tried to
embrace traditional healers or tried to eradicate them? Why? (Edward Green, Gilles Bibeau).
52. A case study from East Asia
53. A case study from South Asia
54. A case study from Africa
55. A case study from Latin America or the Caribbean.
56. The Politics Of Health Activism. Organizations that focus on specific diseases, conditions
or healthcare issues present a wide spectrum of political positions. As discussed in class the
observer can arrange the various organizations along a continuum of forms of political
engagement. Following closely the outline in the health activism assignment from October 2006,
write a brief essay on a group or groups of health activists using the A-B-C framework.
Options:
1. Choose a disease or condition and make an inventory of organizations that focus on that
disease. By consulting the information available on their websites see if you can arrange
them along a continuum from Group A to Group B to Group C. Print home pages from all
groups and include these in the assignment. Provide the mission statement, major
activities, and main sources of funding.
2. Find an organization from Group C and do a more in-depth study of it, including its
founding, subsequent history, as well as its mission statement, main activities and
sources of funding. Be precise about the nature of the group’s critiques of a) big pharma,
b) mainstream medicine, c) government policies and d) the organizations in its field, from
Group A and B. Include webpages and pamphlets and brochures.