NAME:Beauty Kedirile Makwela

MODULE CODE:APY 2602 ANTHROPOLOGY OF HEALTH

TAKE -HOME EXAMINATION PORTFOLIO
ASSESSMENT 03

ANTHROPOLOGY OF HEALTH AND ITS THEORETICAL APPROACHES ALONG WITH

THE APPLICATION.

TABLE OF CONTENT

COVER PAGE 1

INTRODUCTION 2

BODY

-THEORETICAL APPROACHES AND ITS APPLICATION

-Ethnomedicine theory and its application 2-3
-Medical ecological theory and its application 3
-Cultural interpretive theory and its application 3-4
-Critical medical anthropology and its application 4-5

CONCLUSION 5

REFERENCE 6
INTRODUCTION

What will be a research without theories or law that we should follow to conduct a
research?In anthropology of health we have theories that are followed if anthropologists
want to understand the research or a society that they are conducting their study at.This
discussion will be focusing on how anthropologists apply the theoretical approaches that are
used in anthropology of health to understand the phenomenon they are studying. The
theoretical approaches that we will look at are ethnomedicine,medical ecological ,cultural
interpretative,and critical medical anthropology.

Anthropology of health which is also known as medical anthropology studies how different
people from different cultural perspectives view illness,sickness and how they seek
healing.According to Blaxter(2004:43) health anthropology is that health related issue which
include diseases and treatment ,how and why one gets sick ,and the nature of recovery ,are
for more than narrow biological phenomena.When anthropologist are doing their research on
how people get sick,view sickness and how the views are different to every society they
know all that by applying the theoretical approaches .

ETHNOMEDICINE AND ITS APPLICATION

Ethnomedicine approach is the study of traditional or indigenous medicine that is within the
context of the culture or society beliefs and how they view illness or sickness and which
types of medicine they use for healing the healing methods include animals and
plants.According to Chattopadhyay(2009) ethnomedicine is the the study of traditional
medicine of ethnic communities,their knowledge and practices that transmitted orally over
the centuries ,evolved over millennia of human existence. The ethnomedicine depends on
the beliefs ,views of the society that a person comes from and it differs from one society to
another because how the other society views the illness and how to heal is different in the
perspective of the other society.In South Africa we have so many cultural diversity ,we have
the Indian culture,African culture and the Western culture,Indian whenever one gets sick
they belief might lie on that their god Shiva is mad and punishing one and they will perform
rituals for forgiveness meaning for healing they will use plants or oils,Indians use their
medicaments which is they use plants in the treatment of diseases (Fabriany & Farnworth
2001),while the Western culture will believe God is sending a message and they will fast or
they will go to a medical doctor for a check up and give them drug for numbing the pain do a
for healing and most Africans culture they will visit the traditional healer so they may speak
to the ancestor and find out what is wrong with them and on normally basis the traditional
healer will give their patient a medicine or instruction of what needs to be done ,it mights be
slaughtering a goat and the medicine that is given to the patient might be
mphephu,lengana.Performing rituals with the utmost devotion is another way to please and
asking forgiveness Lord Shiva and offering mill on the shivling is a symbol of purity
,nourishment ,and sustenance (Lifestyle :2024).Western culture use western medicine ,uses
a research and organ system-based approach to diagnose and treat various specific medical
condition ,often using pharmaceutical drugs, radiation ,and surgery (Global Autoimmune
Institute).Illness is regarded as having both natural and supernatural causes and thus must
be treated by both physical and spiritual means,using divination,incantation ,animal,sacrifice
,exoris and herbs (Ozioma & Chinwa : 2019).Anthropologist apply ethnomedicine to
understand various phenomena by exploring how cultural beliefs and practices influence
health care in different communities.Anthropologist will go to the societies study the history
and ask the community members about their beliefs what which measure they take when
they are sick and even interview the local traditional healer,they history they look in is from
early ages were they believing in the same beliefs they have now,while doing this they use
the method of participant-observation,qualitative method and quantitative the two methods
include interviews,survey,the use of statistical analysis.

MEDICAL ECOLOGICAL THEORY AND ITS APPLICATION

Medical ecology is between human health and the population ,the environment that we live
in as humans plays a very crucial part in our health.Medical ecology examines the
relationship of health to physical ,biological ,and social environments ,it approaches examine
population health and disease as reflecting the group’s biological,individual and cultural
adaption(Bass 2009).Most factors that affect people's health that has to do with the
environment is pollution,climate change and habitat disruption.Environmental hazards can
affect human health in a number of ways,from contributing to chronic diseases like cancer or
acute illnesses like heat exhaustion(Winter: 2018).When anthropologist are doing their
research in how environment is a crucial part of humans health ,they will either ask the
community members which sickness they suffer in the most and visit hospital to find out
which diseases that brings people to the clinic/hospital .In the community most people are
living with trauma ,psychological they are not okay because of the crime that is in the
community they even lock gate ,close windows during the day because of fear of being
attacked in their own homes ,they developed maladaptation.Medical anthropologist at the
university of Durham in England collaboration with Rachel Barker who is also an
anthropologist and Alison,an physician -anthropologist did a research that compared
homeless children and boys who live with their families in illegally occupied area of the city
called Squatter settlement(Mc Elroy 2015).In the research was found that homeless children
were actually healthier that they thought they would be although the had some infection in
their bodies because they lived in street, which is common to get an infection however the
boys who were living with their families they were not health.The result were found the
homeless children with the money they worked for they were buying nutritional food compare
to the boys who lived with their families (Panter -Brick et al 2001).Medical ecology is also
related to adaptation,humans learn to adapt the environment they live in in order to survive
,the same way the homeless children adapted the environment of living on the street for
survival.

CULTURAL INTERPRETIVE THEORY AND ITS APPLICATION

In my view cultural interpretation is the process of interpreting health,sickness and health in

a form of individual culture .By culture meaning the custom,value and beliefs. This approach
emphasises understanding cultures by interpreting meanings and symbols that are notable
to the people within those cultures.According to Osborn and Kleinman(2021),cultural
interpretation holds that sickness is inseparable from its cultural context.An anthropologist
called Clifford Geertz developed the perspective of interpretive anthropology ,which is
referred as a specific approach to ethnographic writing and practices related to other
perspective that developed within the sociocultural,the method that Geertz developed
helped/allowed anthropologist to interpret a culture by understanding how people within that
culture are interpreting themselves and their own understanding (Panourgia 2012).In health
we need to understand which medicine does the culture regarded for healing,certain food
may be considered healing not just for their nutritional value but also for their symbolic
significance within culture (Schultz,Emily & Lavenda 2009).Regarding mental health in the
perspective of cultural interpretation ,most Africans long time ago held that a child who is
born with a mental disorder may be view as a curse or someone bewitch the
family.Traditionally in Uganda ,mental health disorder were widely believed to be caused by
external spiritual forces (Ray: 2023).Anthropologist apply cultural interpretive theory by
deeply engaging studying how they do things understanding the cultures patterns,customs
and values ,Geertz (1973), he studied Baseline cockfight ,he interprets it not just as sport but
as a text filled with symbolic meaning about Baseline society ,masculinity and status ,the
same way food are not just food to some communities by medicine .Cultural interpretation
offers a rich perspective for understanding the complexities of human culture

CRITICAL MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL (CMA) THEORY OR POLITICAL ECONOMIC

THEORY AND ITS APPLICATION
Critical medical anthropology is also the theoretical approach that is used in anthropology of
health to study health.This theory approach looks or pay attention to how social,economic
and political conditions influence health and illness ,it looks beyond the biological factors that
can make a person's health disturbed,its main focus is the economy of the country ,we live in
and check how the economy affect people's health.Other definition of critical medical
anthropology is defined as it is a branch of medical anthropology that blends critical theory
and ground-level ethnographic approaches in the consideration of the political economy of
health,and the effect of social inequality,it propose that health disparities are determined
social structure and institution that create,reinforce and perpetuate poverty and privilege
(Witeska-Mlynarezyk 2015:386).

Critical medical anthropologist ,when they do an ethnographic research ,they study and
perceive the community to understand the local health practices,beliefs and the social
inequality of health and by this is when they realise that people who seek health care from
public and private sectors are not treated the same way.The reason for unequal treatment is
private hospitals they have policies in which they patients pay money and the hospital will
make sure with the money they purchase equipment that is needed to help their patient and
provide the best health care but as for public hospitals they are funded by government and
most government hospitals are not in right conditions ,they lack equipment ,shortage of
nurses and doctors and shortage of beds ,this is the reason even one is seriously ill they will
be sent home because there is no bed for them.According to Maseko and Harris (2018) “
Private hospitals are generally better equipped in terms of resources ,staff and infrastructure
;attracting an estimated 79% of all doctors,with one specialist doctor serving fewer than 500
people on average compared to nearly 11000 people in the public sector.

Critical medical anthropology in political context economy, it will check the ones in power of
the country, who makes the decision of the country .For example ,in SA regarding the
matters of health we communicate with the Minister of Health to make them aware of the
issues we encounter with at hospital and they may send a budget in how every year they will
fund the hospital so they get whatever they need.However anthropologist do not just do i
research to what poor unfunded hospital work but also compare that in SA someone who
earn an high income and have medical aid gets the best health care than someone who
depends on social grants or someone who earn low income ,in South Africa inequalities in
health have been extensively reported, the poor suffer more illness than the rich (Ataguba &
Alaba 2012).The public sector is underfunded while most South African can not afford
exorbitant cost private care(Ransburg 2021).In global context,during COVID-19 some
countries had it tough because of they country's economy is bad ,those countries were even
unable to get vaccine and they had nomrooms for quarantine .According to Jensen and
Molina (2020),20 developing countries were run out of ICU beds.

CONCLUSION

In this discussion ,we discussed how anthropologist use these theoretical approaches to
understand the phenomena they are studying .We discuss what is anthropology of health
and its nature and we went to its theoretical approaches ,which included
ethnomedicine,medical ecological ,cultural interpretive and critical medical anthropology.We
went deeper and explained that ethnomedicine is the study of traditional medicine, which
include plants and animals and discussed it application.Medical ecology that environment is
connected or does have an effect in humans health,cultural interpretative that ,individuals
culture have an influence of hoe one view and heal their sickness,critical medical
anthropology that the economy of our country plays its own role on how fast we get medical
assistance.We saw how the theoretical approaches play a major part to understand cultures
and health.
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