Surface Tensions is an expansive, yet intimate study of how people remake themselves after catastrophic bodily change—the loss of limbs, the loss of function, the loss or replacement of organs. Against a sweeping cultural backdrop of art, popular culture, and the history of science and medicine, Manderson uses narrative epistemology based on in-depth interviews with over 300 individuals to show how they re-establish the coherence of their bodies, identities, and biographies. In addition to...

This essential collection on maternal and child health focuses on the rites of giving birth from a cross-cultural perspective. The distinguished list of contributors describe the many customs surrounding birth through infancy, highlighting a wide range of variation in practices across cultures. They discuss attitudes and techniques in childbirth, the interaction between human evolutionary form and birthing procedures, the influence of societal factors that differentiate Western from non-We...

大流行正當發生之際生命遭逢鉅大危難卻刻不容緩的紀錄COVID-19疫情始於2019年，2020年肆虐全球，造成民眾的健康、生活、經濟以至文化、習俗等層面深遠的影響。我們有必要了解和總結此疫情在全球各地的流行狀況、防治經驗，尤其是不足之處。要總結這些經驗除了從了解世界各地流行情況開始，也需要從各個學科視角進行觀察、研究。本書是國際著名人類學家勒諾爾．曼德森（Lenore Manderson）教授等，在世界衛生組織（WHO）等機構的資助下，於COVID-19疫情期間，組織世界各國45位醫學人類學家和社會學家所進行的全球性調查研究報告。全書的內容不是枯燥乏味的感染率、死亡率等統計數字，而是應用人類學理論和概念，將大流行定位在一個緊密相連卻極其不平等的世界中，反映出傳染疾病疫情壓在民眾，特別是貧窮者、弱勢群體肩上的「重擔」，以及其原因和可能的解決方法。Drawing upon the empirical scholarship and research expertise ...

In recent years, first feminist considerations, and now concerns with HIV/Aids have led to new approaches to the study of sexuality. The experience of puberty, explorations with sexuality and courtship, and the pressure to reproduce are a few of the human tensions central to this volume.

Cancer Entangled explores the shifts that took place in Denmark around the millennium, when health promoters set out to minimize delays in cancer diagnoses in hope of improving cancer survival. The authors suggest a temporal reframing of cancer control that emphasizes the importance of focusing on how people – potential patients as well as health care professionals – experience and anticipate cancer before a diagnosis or a prediction has been made. This argument compellin...

Disclosure is a frequently used but rarely interrogated concept in health and social welfare. Abuse, disability, sexuality and health status can be ‘disclosed’ to peers and professionals, and on some occasions, disclosure is a requirement and not a choice. This innovative collection examines the new social and political implications of disclosure practices in health and illness.We make our identities and our connections with others by sharing life stories, experiences and innermost...

This collection, the first of its kind in Australia, illustrates the richness of data and analysis born of the anthropological study of contemporary white Australian society.The studies presented here deal with diverse settings and events, ranging from a community's responses to a bushfire in rural NSW to the messages encoded in a male strip show in Adelaide. Work and leisure, family life and institutional relationships, natural disaster and culturally manipulated violence, the par...

Violence against women is a violation of women's human rights and a priority public health issue. It is endemic worldwide. While much has been written about it in industrialized societies, there has been relatively little attention given to such violence in Asian societies. This book addresses the structural and interpersonal violences to which women are subject, both under conditions of conflict and disruption, and where civil society is relatively ordered. It explores sexual violence and...

Technologies of Sexuality, Identity and Sexual Health highlights the complex ways in which sexuality is expressed and enacted through local ideologies, global identities and material cultures, and their influence on people’s sexual health and well-being. Its impetus is the renewed interest in technology and the ‘social life of things,’ including pharmaceuticals, expanded sexual and related surgery, the growing exploitation of markets for sexual and contraceptive products, and the ...

The Routledge Handbook of Medical Anthropology provides a contemporary overview of the key themes in medical anthropology. In this exciting departure from conventional handbooks, compendia and encyclopedias, the three editors have written the core chapters of the volume, and in so doing, invite the reader to reflect on the ethnographic richness and theoretical contributions of research on the clinic and the field, bioscience and medical research, infectious and non-commun...

Reproductive Boundaries examines the shifting boundaries of prenatal care in Switzerland, focusing on the Pregnancy Support Center's innovative psychosocial model. By redefining the territory of care, the Center extends its reach beyond the medical domain, exemplifying the reproductivization of life, the increasing organization of various life aspects through a reproductive lens. The book explores how this approach challenges traditional borders between medical and psychosocial ca...

This volume brings together two parallel fields of interest. One is the understanding among psychologists and other social scientists of the limits to psychometric measurement, and the challenges in generating information about quality of life and wellbeing that enable comparison across time and place, at both individual and population levels. The second is the interest among anthropologists and others in the lived experience of chronic illness and disability, including the unpredictable f...