Читать книгу A Companion to Medical Anthropology - Группа авторов - Страница 19

Partially to better demonstrate ties to the parent discipline the GMA continued to push the AAA (which at that time did not have “sections”) to create a mechanism for its affiliation with AAA as a subgroup. Eventually, largely due to the GMA’s own organizing efforts, this came to pass (see Weidman 1986, pp. 121, 124): the group adopted a “constitution” in 1970, incorporated, and in 1972 became an official AAA “affiliate” (Society for Medical Anthropology 1975). This move firmly anchored the group – now the Society for Medical Anthropology (SMA) – within academic anthropology, although many members remained SfAA members also. Additionally, partly because anthropologists eschewing applied work tended not to join SMA née GMA (cf. Good 1994, p. 4), the influence of applied perspectives remained strong. Many SMA members were employed in schools of medicine, nursing, or public health or in the international and public health fields. The authority of biomedical clinical culture, where curative work and saving lives takes precedence, was manifest (Singer 1992a).

To counter accusations of over-specialization, a statement issued by the SMA in 1981 defining medical anthropology asserted unambiguously: “Medical anthropology is not a discipline separate from anthropology” (Society for Medical Anthropology 1981, p. 8). This did not offset objections related to the narrow technical definition of the term “medical,” noted, for instance, at the GMA’s 1968 organizational meeting. Not only did “medical” leave out nurses and members of the allied health professions; it suggested (and still does) a biomedical gold standard. Other concerns have been the implied focus on pathology and the implicit devaluation of interpretive ethnographic methods.

Nursing theorist Madeline Leininger suggested instead “health anthropology” – which an increasing number prefer today as well (e.g., Baer et al. 2016), perhaps most commonly in Europe, where the preference has deep roots (Hsu 2012). The appellation is perhaps least commonly heard in the Global South, where medical utility often is emphasized (Mishra 2007). At the 1968 meeting, however, although the proposal to rebrand instigated “lively discussion” it did not triumph (Weidman 1986, p. 119).