Med Anthropol Theory. 2017 December 15; Volume 4 (Issue 5); DOI:10.17157/mat.4.5.477
Beshar I, Stellmach DUS
Med Anthropol Theory. 2017 December 15; Volume 4 (Issue 5); DOI:10.17157/mat.4.5.477
Despite broadly shared interest in the welfare of ‘precarious lives’, medical anthropology and medical humanitarianism are too often in tension. In this survey, we sketch a history of the two disciplines, then track three major patterns through which anthropologists approach the analysis of medical humanitarian efforts. Our three patterns frame medical anthropology as: 1) a critique of medical humanitarianism and its ties to colonialism and globalization, 2) a translation of medical humanitarianism and its associated lexicon, 3) and a reform of medical humanitarianism from the inside out. In highlighting the individual strengths of these three approaches, we argue for the value of medical anthropology – as both a mindset and a method – in health and humanitarian emergencies.More