Medical Anthropology

Medical anthropology explores in the interactions between the social, cultural, and biological factors that influence health and illness (SMA, n.d). It is constituted by a heterogeneous body of work, organised around various conceptual and theoretical approaches, as noted by Didier Fassin (2000: 97). Practical reasons, particularly demands placed on anthropologists, have led to these approaches being grouped together. However, these bodies of scholarship all focus on illness, and pay particular attention to the interactions between the biological and the social, and between power and knowledge – especially with regards to the politics of science and the social construction of knowledge. Furthermore, they hold an interest in models of interpretation and treatment of illness that are unique to cultural environments, thus approaching medicine and health in terms of their cultural meanings.

This field therefore examines diverse human experiences of disability, illness, disease, suffering and spiritually charged or environmental afflictions in various contexts. It explores the embodiment of such phenomena by human beings and their interactions with non-humans – such as other species, but also viruses, infections, or spirits and divinities. The discipline highlights the varied philosophies and traditions of (health)care, their cultural norms and institutions, and examines the distinction between care and cure. It dugs into a variety of subjects, such as the political economy of healthcare and its policies, biotechnologies, global epidemics, psychological distress, drug addictions, popular health cultures, public health and harm reduction practices, reproductive health, risk and vulnerability in regards to illness, the influence of globalization processes on local healthcare cultures, understandings of the normal and pathological in biomedicine and psychiatry, or chronic diseases.

Medical anthropology reveals the complexities at play in the relationships between life, death, human transitions and transformations, and the existential questions they generate. In this sense, this subfield requires a critical perspective and an epistemological curiosity to alternative understandings of the body. It explores the subjectivity and experience of human afflictions and culture-bound idioms of distress, as well as the symbolic efficacy at play in forms of healing.

Research interests at ISEK include: medical and therapeutic pluralism; assisted reproductive technologies; modernity and coloniality in medical practices, knowledge and institutions; racial inequalities in healthcare; early childhood interventions in the Global South; healthcare development programme policies; philosophies of care in psychiatry; reproductive justice; infertility; relations between biomedicine and alternative, religious, and traditional frameworks; medical technologies and their transnational circuits; healthcare public policies; access to healthcare; food and nutrition. Medical anthropology researchers at ISEK explore such issues in various regions, such as Latin America (Argentina), Southern and East Africa (Ethiopia, South Africa), India, Europe (Switzerland, Belgium, Germany), and Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Myanmar), emphasizing the diversity of this subfield.

Fassin, Didier. 2000. “Entre politiques du vivant et politiques de la vie : pour une anthropologie de la santé”. Anthropologie et Sociétés, 24(1), 95–116. https://doi.org/10.7202/015638ar.

Society for Medical Anthropology (SMA), American Anthropology Association (AAA). N.d. “What is Medical Anthropology?”. Available online: https://medanthro.net/about/history-of-sma/about-medical-anthropology/ (accessed 10.2.2026).