Anthropology and Medicine: Prospects for Interaction (Discussions of the 1980s-2000s)

Abstract

The article surveys the key issues in medical anthropology that have been discussed in the 1990s-2000s in major periodicals such as “Medical Anthropology Quarterly: International Journal for the Analysis of Health”, “Anthropology & Medicine”, “Studies in Medical Anthropology”, and others. The history of institutionalization of the Society for Medical Anthropology as well as its major activities and methodological foundations are reviewed. Presently medical anthropology plays an important part in interdisciplinary research on the origin and dissemination of certain illness/health models and in the study of ethical consequences of shifts in the notions of body and personality. Medical anthropologists are to assume a leading role in the shaping of an integral system of health care as well as in working out the concept of medicine of the future.