Читать книгу A Companion to Medical Anthropology - Группа авторов - Страница 30

Nonetheless, medical anthropology remains positioned well to contribute to general anthropology: Its focus – health (and things related) – intrinsically lends itself to intradisciplinary collaboration. It has inherent interdisciplinary ramifications, too, as seen in work undertaken toward such goals as: improving life for people with chronic diseases, bettering palliative care and our handling of death, increasing our understanding of (and ability to address) health inequities related to structural racism, and helping us deal ethically with biotechnology.

George Marcus has highlighted medical anthropology’s interdisciplinary appeal as well. Calling it “one of the most energetic and successful of the established subfields” (2005, p. 681), he argues that, today in anthropology, “newer topical arenas and theoretical concerns are developed through interdisciplinary discussions… not through studied debates and discussions around products of anthropological research among the community of anthropologists itself” (p. 675). Marcus further contends that medical anthropology enjoys “derived prestige in anthropology by dint of this [interdisciplinary] participation” (p. 681).

Some of this prestige relates to the push from within the academy to secure more grants and contracts. Financial awards from biomedical research and public health funders are generally heftier than humanities awards. In addition, the former have more cachet outside of anthropology. This can be important to scholars seeking career advancement: There does exist a political economy of research (see Singer 1992b; Sobo 2009).

But Marcus’s argument is not directly concerned with that. Rather, he worries that most “career making research projects” today rely on “social and cultural theory produced elsewhere than in anthropology” (p. 676). He also argues that, with no prevailing “disciplinary metadiscourse” or unique central tendencies – even the old claim of culture as anthropology’s special purview has been challenged, for instance, by “cultural studies” – prestige in anthropology may influence but cannot come from the core: “Anthropologists in general tend to be most impressed with their own research initiatives that most impress others” (p. 681) – by work that garners recognition in extramural “authoritative knowledge creating spheres” (p. 687).

This emphasis on work undertaken at the periphery or even extra-disciplinarily and then returned to the anthropological fold also was seen in the SMA’s 2009 conference theme, “Medical Anthropology at the Intersections,” which highlighted work in twelve areas: global public health, mental health, medical history, feminism and technoscience, science and technology studies, genetics/genomics, bioethics, public policy, occupational science, disability studies, gender/sexuality studies, international and area studies. Convener Marcia Inhorn, reminiscent of Marcus, identified these disciplines as housing “the cutting edges of our field” (2007, p. 249).