Table of Contents

SECTION A: Orientation
Introduction
Medical Anthropology and its Transformation
The Critical Gaze
Postmodernism Medical Anthropology: A Critique

SECTION B: The Macro-Social Level
Health-Related Issues in Socialist-Oriented Societies: Ideals, Contradictions, and Realities
Studying Up: The Political Economy of Nuclear Regulation

SECTION C: The Intermediate-Social Level
The American Dominative Medical System as a Reflection of Social Relations in the Larger Society
AIDS and the Health Crisis of the U.S. Urban Poor
The Drive for Professionalization in British Osteopathy

SECTION D: The Micro-Social Level
Medical Hegemony, Biomedical Magic, and Folk Medicine: Reproductive Illness among Haitian Women
Prophets and Advisors in African-American Spiritual Churches: Therapy, Palliative, or Opiate?

SECTION E: The Individual Level
Confronting Juan García's Drinking Problem: The Demedicalization of Alcoholism
Cure, Care and Control: Agency and the Structure in the Clinical Encounter

SECTION F: Directions
How Critical Can Clinical Anthropology Be?
Critical Praxis in Medical Anthropology
Topic Index
Name Index

About the Author

Merrill Singer is a medical anthropologist and professor in Anthropology at The University of Connecticut and in Community Medicine at The University of Connecticut Health Center.