Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

An investigation of the social, cultural, and political issues that contribute to problems of ill-health in resource-poor countries and the major efforts in international public health to address these problems. It explores the application of knowledge about social, and especially gender relations in international health, with particular attention to local perspectives and grassroots initiatives. Institutional frameworks intended to promote health development are examined in historical and contemporary perspective through case studies on topics such as: malaria, population control, maternal health, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis. Breadth-Social Sciences.

COURSE DETAILS:

Health is an object of humanitarian intervention in many parts of the world. Every year, millions of people around the world die – and many more suffer pain and grief – due to health conditions that are, from a technical point of view, preventable, manageable, or curable, yet remain intractable sources of suffering. This course takes an anthropological approach to global health solution-making. We will examine how culture and social relations are pictured  in international health programs, as part of an analysis of notions of “health development” and the institutional logics that promote them That is, we pay special attention to encounters: the situations and social interfaces where the “culture” of public health enters into ordinary lives in the global south. In doing so, we also ask in what sense the domain of practice now known as “global health” is “global.” What kinds of knowledge do global health programs obscure, discount, or ignore? How does humanitarian solution-making in the name of health also structure relations of power? What forms of action and interaction are reproduced or altered in these contexts?

 

The first section of the course introduces historical perspective on colonial health, so-called “tropical medicine,” and the mid-twentieth field of “international health” and the movement, led from the global south, for primary health care. In the second part of the course, we read two book-length case studies to think about health interventions as a field of social interactions the effects of which go beyond the measurable impacts on physical health. In the last part of the course, students will consolidate what they’ve learned and carry out further research by working in small groups to produce a final project:  a zine that communicates insights from this course to a wider audience.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Students will have opportunities to develop multi-layered, dynamic understandings of health interventions carried out in the global south. You will practice using anthropology’s signature tools – attention to context, to point of view, to everyday life, and to world-building actions – as a means of assessing the effects of humanitarian intervention into health. The course is designed to foster sustained consideration of context-specific case-studies by giving you opportunities to read closely, link ideas and information across sources, summarize arguments, and communicate clearly about complex ideas verbally and in writing. As a 400-level course, it gives you an opportunity to combine coursework with guided independent research in a format to be shared outside the classroom.

 

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

• A scanner app for your smartphone, or access to a scanner

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: