Syllabus - Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

Interdisciplinary Programme (MDEV and MIA)
Academic year 2016 - 2017
Anthropology of Health: Disease, Healing and
Witchcraft
PROFESSOR
Yvan Droz
[email protected]
Office hours :
Office :
Phone :
by appointment
MdP P1-515B
+41 22 908 4511
MINT036 - Autumn - 6 ECTS
Course Description
What can anthropology say about health, disease and healing?
In this seminar, we present what is currently at stake in the field
of the anthropology of health or medical anthropology. First, we
question the notions of health and disease, as well as of body
and mind. Second, we discuss how people develop tactics and
strategies to recover health; how they conceive of the healing
process; and when it fails their conception of death. The
supposed causes of illness are often expressed in witchcraft
accusations, a field thoroughly studied by anthropologists.
Sorcery and witchcraft and their link with religion will be
elaborated in the seminar. Finally, we present how
anthropologists do conceive of the current governance of health,
modern body politics and the impacts of new medical
technologies on our representations of life and death. These
different domains will be discussed through case studies we
conducted in Europe, Africa, South-East Asia and South
America, and one or two visits to museums in Geneva.
Françoise Grange Omokaro
franç[email protected]
Office hours:
Office:
Phone:
TH 16h-18h and by
appointment
MdP P1-515A
+41 22 908 4517
ASSISTANT
Syllabus
OBJECTIVES
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To adopt a critical perspective on concepts such as health, body, death, disease, healing,
conversion, witchcraft and sorcery;
To distinguish disease, sickness and illness;
To get an insight into the challenges that new medical technologies bring at stake and their
ethical aspects
To embed the health-disease paradigm within the wider universe of misfortune and death
EVALUATION
Contribution to the debates, active participation in the seminar, readings and critical comments on the
seminar texts, as well as the individual paper will be taken into account in the evaluation and grading.
The individual paper will be grounded in a specific case study or a theoretical question related to the
seminar. A bibliographic investigation will show that the topic of the paper is feasible within the time
span. The paper will count about 20'000 signs and will be handed in on the 9th of January 2017,
Chemin Eugène-Rigot 2 | CP 136 - CH-1211 Genève 21 | +41 22 908 57 00 | graduateinstitute.ch
MAISON DE LA PAIX
electronically and hard copy. The participants will follow the typographic, format, citation and
bibliographic rules of the student handbook. A first sketch of the individual paper (title, short
problematic, and some bibliographic references) will be handed in by the 23th of October 2016.
The bibliography of the seminar will be found on-site, and will be updated during the semester.
One ECTS will be given for the active participation in the seminar, which is obligatory. Readings
sustaining the seminar classes will account for two ECTS, and the remaining three ECTS will be
accorded to the individual seminar paper (including the associated readings).
TENTATIVE PROGRAMME
20.09.2016
27.09.2016
4.10.2016
11.10.2016
18.10.2016
25.10.2016
1.11.2016
8.11.2016
15.11.2016
22.11.2016
29.11.2016
6.12.2016
13.12.2016
20.12.2016
Introduction;
The semantical field at stake: the social construction of body, health, disease, etc.
The semantical field at stake: the social construction of body, health, disease, etc.
Misfortune: For the sake of Sorcery and Witchcraft;
Religion: Conversion and Cure;
The Anthropology of Death;
Replaced with a visit to museums in Geneva (date to be confirmed);
Medical Pluralism, therapeutic strategies and tourism;
Foucault and the Biopower (Béatrice Bertho);
Anthropology of Health Professionals;
Case Study: Violence, Death, and Missing;
Case Study: Pilgrimage and healing rituals in Morocco (Fenneke Reysoo);
Case Study: Socio-psychological Impacts of the Agricultural Policies:
Interdisciplinary and Comparative Study (Switzerland, France and Québec);
Case Study: New Medical Technologies;
Conclusions.
An
BIBLIOGRAPHY
AUGE Marc, “Anthropologie de la Maladie”, L’Homme, Anthropologie : Etat des lieux, 97-98 : 77-88,
1986. AUGE Marc, HERZLICH Claudine (Eds), Le sens du mal. Anthropologie, histoire, sociologie de
la maladie, Ed. des Archives Contemporaines, Paris, 1984.
BENOIST Jean, Petite bibliothèque d’anthropologie médicale. Une anthologie. Tome 1, AMADES,
Diffusion Karthala, Paris, 2002.
BENOIST Jean, Petite bibliothèque d’anthropologie médicale. Une anthologie. Tome 2. AMADES,
Diffusion Karthala, Paris, 2008.
FAINZANG Sylvie, “L'anthropologie médicale dans les sociétés occidentales. Récents
développements et nouvelles problématiques.“, Sciences sociales et santé 19 (2) : 5-28, 2001.
FASSIN Didier, JAFFRE Yannick (Eds), Sociétés, développement et santé, Ellipses-AUPELF, Paris,
1992.
FOSTER George, ANDERSON Barbara G., Medical Anthropology. Alfred A. Knopp; wbery Award
Record, New York, 1978.
GOOD Byron, Comment faire de l’anthropologie médicale? Médecine, rationalité et vécu, Synthélabo,
Le Plessis-Robinson, Collection Les empêcheurs de tourner en rond, 1998.
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Good, Byron J., Medicine, Rationality, and Experience. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
1994.
Good, Byron, Michael MJ Fischer, Sarah S Willen, and Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, A reader in
medical anthropology : theoritical trajectories, emergent realities. MA: Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, 2010.
KLEINMAN Arthur, Patients and healers in the context of culture : an exploration of the borderland
between anthropology, medicine and psychiatry, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1988.
KLEINMAN Arthur, Writing at the margin: discourse between anthropology and medicine, Berkeley,
University of California Press, 1995.
LAPLANTINE François, Anthropologie de la maladie: étude ethnologique des systèmes de
représentations étiologiques et thérapeutiques dans la société occidentale, Paris, Payot, 1986.
LOCK, Margaret et Vinh-Kim NGUYEN, An anthropology of biomedicine. Malden, MA, WileyBlackwell, 2010.
MASSE Raymond, Culture et santé publique. Les contributions de l’anthropologie à la prévention et à
la promotion de la santé, Montréal, Gaëtan Morin, 1995.
NICHTER Marc, Global health: why cultural perceptions, social representations, and biopolitics
matter. Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 2008.
NICHTER Marc, LOCK Margareth (Eds), New horizons in medical anthropology. Essays in honour of
Charles Leslie, London and New York: Routledge, 2001.
SARGENT Carolyn F., JOHNSON Thomas M., Medical anthropology: contemporary theory and
method, Westport, Praeger, 1996.
SAILLANT Francine, GENEST Serge (Eds), Anthropologie médicale : ancrages locaux, défis globaux,
Economica [etc.], Paris [etc.], 2005.
SAILLANT Francine, BOULIANNE Manon (Eds), Transformations sociales genre et santé :
perspectives critiques et comparatives, Les Presses de l'Université Laval , L'Harmattan, Paris, 2003.
SINGER Merrill, ERICKSON Pamela I. (Eds), A companion to Medical anthropology, Malden. MA,
Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
VIDAL Laurent, Faire de l’anthropologie. Santé, science et développement, La Découverte, Paris,
2010.
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