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Framing the Labor of Paid Egg Donors in Iran: Marginality, Gendered Care, and Divine Reward Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-09-10 Tiba Bonyad
Despite the economic incentives evidenced in the recruitment strategies of the Iranian fertility industry for egg donors, the official discourse put forward by policymakers conveys egg donation as ...
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Sitting in Wait: Everyday Caregiving Practices for People with Dementia in Rural South Africa Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-09-05 Michelle R. Brear, Themby Nkovana, Lenore Manderson
Practice theories offer potential to reveal, understand, and attribute value to the everyday thoughts and actions of dementia caregivers. Drawing on ethnographic data from research in rural South A...
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Precarity and Hope at the Intersections of HIV and Cervical Cancer in a Johannesburg Clinic Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-09-05 Jonathan Stadler, Fiona Scorgie
In a tragically ironic twist, antiretroviral therapy (ART) that promised an end to AIDS ushered in a syndemic of viral cancers, transforming hope to despair. In this article we draw from the illnes...
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In/Visible – A Photographic Journey Into the Lives of Egg Donors in Spain Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-09-03 Laura Perler, Tamara Sánchez Pérez
The result of a collaboration between an anthropologist and a photographer, in this photo essay we aim to visualize the medical process of egg donation and the quotidian lives of egg donors in Spai...
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Vulnerable Lives, Irrelevant Deaths? Dying Alone and Receiving Flawed Care in an Institution for the Aged in Lima, Peru Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-08-15 Magdalena Zegarra Chiappori
This ethnographic exploration of death in the Peruvian context draws on fieldwork among abandoned–both by their families and the state–older adults in a shelter for the homeless in Lima, Peru. I ex...
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Collective Sensemaking and Healthcare Workers’ Ripple Effect Influencing Vaccine Hesitancy in West Michigan Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-08-14 Kristin Hedges, Maggie Willson
The social efficacy of vaccines has been a central concern around COVID-19 vaccine uptake rates. As partners on the Vaccinate West Michigan Coalition, we conducted a rapid ethnographic assessment p...
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Ethical and Epistemological Implications of Conducting Ethnographic Fieldwork as a Researcher-cum-Clinician in Brussels, Belgium Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-08-07 Dirk Lafaut, Lisa Dikomitis
We draw on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Brussels (Belgium) on the health care experiences of undocumented migrants. We explore the implications of the double position of the ethnographer, wh...
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“The Best I Could”: Future Orientations for Danish Women with Gestational Diabetes Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-08-05 Anna Brueckner Johansen, Laura Emdal Navne
The introduction of personalized medicine marks a shift in pregnancy-related screening, from fetal to maternal health risks putting the pregnant woman’s future orientations center stage. Drawing on...
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Ambivalent Speculations: Learning to Live with Barrett’s Esophagus in the UK Using Facebook Support Groups Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-08-02 Elspeth Davies
Drawing on fieldwork in Facebook support groups, in this article I explore how people, now patients, learnt to live with Barrett’s esophagus, a risk state or “precancer” for a type of esophageal ca...
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Controlling the Diabetic Body? Managing Chronic Illness with Wearable Technology Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-07-29 Lisa Engström
I explore the experience of managing type 1 diabetes with wearable technology. Type 1 diabetes is a chronic illness which requires continuous maintenance to keep the blood glucose levels within ran...
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Making it Work: Everyday Life and Healthcare with Multiple Chronic Illnesses in Denmark Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-07-24 Anna Louise Skovgaard, Tine Tjørnhøj-Thomsen, Marianne Johansson Jørgensen, Mette Terp Høybye
A growing concern in clinical literature with the “treatment burden” of living with multimorbidity raises questions about how we can study and produce knowledge on the impact of health care. In thi...
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Pregnancy As Window of Opportunity? A Danish RCT on Physical Activity During Pregnancy Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-07-24 Julie Bønnelycke, Maria Larsen, Astrid Pernille Jespersen
Pregnancy is seen as a window of opportunity for health interventions, with the potential to produce long-term health changes for mother and child. The RCT FitMum investigates the effects of differ...
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Sound Baths, Trauma Talk, and the Wellness Paradox in the USA Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-07-24 Elisa J. Sobo
Yoga-informed sound bath providers orchestrate vibrations from singing bowls, chimes, gongs, and other simple instruments to promote client well-being – sometimes in ways that create a trauma trap....
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Pharmaceuticalization and Care Coordination in New York City Outpatient Mental Health Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-07-22 Neil Krishan Aggarwal
US government quality measures prioritize pharmaceuticalization and care coordination to promote patient treatment adherence. How these measures affect outpatient mental health service delivery and...
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Adoption of Diabetes Technology in Denmark: Continuous Glucose Monitor as Time-Machine Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-06-26 Astrid Andrea Anesen
Health technologies to monitor glucose values are an important part of daily diabetes self-care. Based on 12 months of fieldwork in Denmark with 14 people with type 2 diabetes, I explore people’s e...
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Bridging Reproductive and Productive Work: The Case of Surrogates in California Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-06-12 Ariadna Ayala, Consuelo Álvarez Plaza, Ana María Rivas
In this article, we explore the perspectives of commercial gestational surrogates in California, USA. Women who gestate for others reveal themselves as important agents in the process of giving mea...
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Health Care Delays and Social Suffering Among Indigenous People with Diabetic Foot Complications in Mexico Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-06-12 Laura Montesi, María Guadalupe Ramírez-Rojas, Jesús Elizarrarás-Rivas
Diabetic foot (DF) is a leading cause of nontraumatic lower-extremity amputations, premature death, and a sign of social inequality in diabetes treatment. In Mexico, the incidence of DF is on the r...
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Strategic In/Visibility of Turkish Egg Donors: Reproductive Labor, Secrecy, and Stigma in the Transnational Bioeconomy Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-05-21 Burcu Mutlu
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a Northern Cypriot clinic, I examine how practices of secrecy function as strategic tools for invisibilization in the lived realities of Turkish egg donors enga...
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Which Ethnography? Whose Ethnography? Medical anthropology’s Epistemic Sensibilities Among Health Ethnographies Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-05-16 Catherine Trundle, Tarryn Phillips
Medical anthropologists working in interdisciplinary teams often articulate expertise with respect to ethnography. Yet increasingly, health scientists utilize ethnographic methods. Through a compar...
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Medicalization of Old Age: Experiencing Healthism and Overdiagnosis in a Nordic Welfare State Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-05-16 Alexandra Brandt Ryborg Jønsson
In Denmark, people are expected to take responsibility for their health, not least as their bodies age and they experience signs of physical or mental decline. Drawing on fieldwork among older Dane...
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As Long As it Lasts—Older Substance Users, Brittle Ties and Danish Health Care Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-05-16 Jonas Strandholdt Bach, Bagga Bjerge, Natasja Eilerskov, Camilla Hoffmann Merrild
In this article, we examine a group of older marginalized substance-using citizens and their relations to Danish health care. We offer empirical examples collected through ethnographic fieldwork, a...
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Waiting for Care and Community Organizing for Serious Health-Related Suffering in Kerala, India Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-05-16 Devi Vijay, Gitte H Koksvik
We explore the temporalities that shape and alleviate serious health-related suffering among those with chronic and terminal conditions in Kerala, India. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork between 2...
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Pregnancy and ‘the Other’: Nausea and Accommodation in Manila Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-05-16 Daniel Tranter-Santoso
Pregnancy is a processual dialectic that involves continual acts of tactical, responsive, and creative accommodation by pregnant women. This article is a phenomenological investigation of pregnancy...
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Who We Test For: Aligning Relational and Public Health Responsibilities in COVID-19 Testing in Scotland Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-05-07 Imogen Bevan, Linda Bauld, Alice Street
COVID-19 testing programs in the UK often called on people to test to “protect others.” In this article we explore motivations to test and the relationships to “others” involved in an asymptomatic ...
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Challenging NHS Corporate Mentality: Hospital-Management and Bureaucracy in London’s Pandemic Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-28 Rebecca Irons
Whilst NHS Health Service management is usually characterized by hierarchized bureaucracy and profit-driven competitiveness, the COVID-19 pandemic drastically disrupted these ways of working and al...
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Crafting Ethnographic Relationships During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany Using Voice-Based Technologies Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Sibille Merz, Franziska König, Joshua Paul, Andreas Bergholz, Christine Holmberg
Drawing on a two-year ethnography of care practices during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, we discuss the affordances of voice-based technologies (smartphones, basic mobile phones, and landline t...
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Testing Care and Morality: Everyday Testing During COVID-19 in Denmark Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Charlotte Nørholm, Jens Seeberg, Andreas Roepstorff, Mette Terp Høybye
COVID-testing was central to control the spread of infection in Denmark. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, we show that testing was not just a diagnostic sign; it was also a biosocial practice tha...
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Tackling the Unknown: Medical Semiotics of Inflammation and their Legal-Epistemological Boundaries in Brazil Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-06 Márcio Vilar
Do different medico-scientific understandings of autoimmune inflammation, whose carriers disobediently promote the therapeutic use of immunostimulants, have the potential to destabilize the hegemon...
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Becoming a (Neuro)migrant: Haitian Migration, Translation and Subjectivation in Santiago, Chile Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-06 Gabriel Abarca-Brown
Based on a multi-sited ethnography conducted over 14 months in northern Santiago, I examine how the introduction of a series of health policies and the global mental health agenda has interacted wi...
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Relational Harm: On the Divisive Effects of Global Health Volunteering at a Hospital in Rural Zambia Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-04 James Wintrup
Drawing on ethnographic research at a hospital in rural Zambia, I show how the presence of white Christian medical volunteers from the United States damaged relations between local health workers a...
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Expanding Medical Semiotics Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-04 R.S. Andersen, M.T Høybye, M.B. Risør
This special issue explores the evolving landscape of medical semiotics of conventional biomedicine. With expansion we refer to the range of phenomena considered signs or symptoms of underlying dis...
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Uncertainty Work: Dealing with a Psychiatric Crisis in Two European Community Mental Health Teams Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-08 Christina Gerdien Roelofke Muusse, Cornelis L. Mulder, Hans Kroon, Jeannette Pols
The quest for how to deal with a crisis in a community setting, with the aim of deinstitutionalizing mental health care, and reducing hospitalization and coercion, is important. In this article, we...
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Correction Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-19
Published in Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness (Vol. 43, No. 1, 2024)
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Time for a Focus on Climate Change and Health Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Rebecca Marsland, James Staples
Published in Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness (Vol. 43, No. 1, 2024)
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The Multispecies Sociality of Digestion and the Microbiopolitics of the Belly Among Somalis in Ethiopia Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Lauren Carruth
Management of what Somalis call “dacar” – translated as digestive bile, bitterness, aloe, and masses of tiny beings in the gut – is key to popular health cultures and ethnophysiologies in eastern E...
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Local Pathways of “Serodiscordant Couples”: Unpacking a Global HIV Population Category in Papua New Guinea Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Asha Persson, Agnes Mek, Richard Naketrumb, Elke Mitchell, Stephen Bell, Angela Kelly-Hanku
HIV prevention programs focus on global “key populations” and more localized “priority populations” to ensure effective targeting of interventions. These HIV population categories have been subject...
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Defining the Limits of Acceptable Parenthood: Reproductive Governance in Brazil Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Claudia Fonseca, Lucia Scalco
Drawing on sources relating to the Brazilian scenario – from ethnographic research in lower-income neighorhoods to the analysis of official documents and public debates – we build on cases of force...
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Partner Exclusion from Childbirth During COVID-19 in Canada: Implications for Theory and Policy Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Kathleen Rice, Sarah Williams
We explore partner exclusion from perinatal care in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants’ narratives show that pregnant couples frame partner presence as a [human] right that was denie...
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(Mis)Perceiving Apnea and Insomnia in Germany: A Tale of Two Disorders Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Julia Vorhölter
In Germany, both apnea and insomnia are highly prevalent sleep disorders. But while there is an extensive and growing infrastructure to deal with apnea, there is very little support for insomnia pa...
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“More Concerned About Mr. and Mrs. Denmark”: Coping with Pandemic Crisis at the Intersection of Homelessness and Drug Use Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Maj Nygaard-Christensen
This article builds on fieldwork conducted during lockdown in Denmark among users of services at the intersection of homelessness and drug use. The paper bridges two distinct approaches to understa...
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“Beautiful Registrations”: Metrics and Prenatal Care in Rural Bahia, Brazil Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-11 Laura Caballe-Climent
In Brazil, lack of quality in the delivery of prenatal care is a persistent concern. In this study, I analyze the dynamics taking place in the prenatal clinical encounter, and illuminate how the re...
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Making It Count – Tracing Signs of Consciousness and Potentiality in Severe Brain Injury in Denmark Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-11 Mette Terp Høybye, Lise Marie Andersen, Hanne Bess Boelsbjerg
Healthcare professionals use various technologies to evaluate and support patients who have suffered severe brain injuries. They integrate monitoring and sensory assessments into their clinical pra...
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Articulating Interesting Subject Positions for People with Dementia: On Hanging Out in Dutch Nursing Homes Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-11-16 Annelieke Driessen
In this article, drawing on ethnographic research on everyday life and care for people with dementia in Dutch residential care, I argue that researchers who work with people with dementia can contr...
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Generative Hanging Out: Developing Engaged Practices for Health-Related Research1 Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-11-16 A. J. Pols
“Hanging out” with one’s interlocutors generates ethnographic ways to creatively involve people in health care research. This special issue focusses on people who are difficult to engage in convent...
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Finding Words for Feeling Bodies: Exploring Drawing Techniques in Dutch Care Practices Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-11-16 Ulrike Scholtes
Feeling is difficult to put into words. Anthropologists have been seeking ways to articulate feeling or other bodily experiences, looking beyond words and borrowing from artistic methods. Drawings,...
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Clothing the Clown: Creative Dressing in a Day-center for People with Dementia in the Netherlands Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-11-16 Ruud Hendriks
Creatief met clowns is a creative and art-based workshop for people living with dementia that invites participants to join in a collaborative process of creating an outfit and clothing a clown. In ...
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Narrating Digital Access, Trauma, and Disability Through Comics and Image Description in Denmark Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-11-16 Barbara Nino Carreras, Brit Ross Winthereik
Anthropologists explore sequential art, particularly comics, as an accessible medium to co-produce knowledge about trauma and disability with research collaborators. However, practices of image des...
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Recentering Labor in the Egg Donation Bioeconomy: Egg Donors’ (Re)productive Work and Subjectification in Spain Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-05 Anna Molas
In 2019, Spanish fertility clinics reached a historical record of ova extractions. A total of 14,521 surgeries were performed to serve the growing egg demand internationally. Here I show how bringi...
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Navigating Chemical Toxicity in Coca Production in the Colombian Borderlands of Putumayo Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-03 Camilo Acero, Linda Ordoñez, Magdalena Harris, Tim Rhodes, Adam Holland, Francisco Gutierrez-Sanín
In Putumayo, a jungle borderland in southern Colombia, thousands of farmers derive their livelihood from the cultivation and processing of coca leaf, exposing themselves to fertilizers, pesticides,...
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Antibiotics in Catalan Primary Care: Prescription, Use and Remedies for a Crisis of Care Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-03 Adam Brisley, Helen Lambert, Carla Rodrigues
Antimicrobial resistance is one of the twenty-first century’s major health challenges. Linked to the extensive use of antibiotics and other antimicrobials, resistance occurs when microbes stop resp...
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Ethics in Ethnography: Lessons of Amana and Ghayb in the Middle East for Medical Anthropology Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-10-03 Ashwak Sam Hauter
Published in Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness (Vol. 42, No. 7, 2023)
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Understanding Gut Sensations: Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Diagnostic Fluidity in Danish Clinical Practice Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-09-08 Camilla Brændstrup Laursen, Rikke Sand Andersen, Marie Louise Tørring
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a prevalent health challenge in a Danish welfare context. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at two Danish gastroenterology clinics, and inspired by Charles E. Rose...
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The Trouble of Stigma in the Age of Datafication: Screening for Mental Health Issues in a Refugee Camp in Jordan Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-09-07 Lars Rune Christensen, Hasib Ahsan
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a refugee camp in Jordan, this article investigates how datafication through digital screening technologies helps shape mental health issues in the face of wide...
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Correction Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-09-01
Published in Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness (Vol. 42, No. 8, 2023)
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Turning Towards the Affective: Medical Semiotics of Child Maltreatment in Denmark Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-08-31 Camilla Hoffmann Merrild
Signs of child maltreatment may be physical and detectable by clinical examination but may also arise as a feeling of strangeness that sparks uncertainty. Based on fieldwork in Danish general pract...
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Complimentary Addictions: Pharmaceutical Experimentalism and the Problem of Recovery in Baltimore Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-08-30 Sanaullah Khan
In Baltimore, clients in methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) experiment with prescription medicine and in doing so face new risks of noncompliance as they tread this blurry line between medical a...
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Drawing in Ethnography: Seeing and Unseeing Everyday Life with Dementia in Sweden Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-08-23 Helena Cleeve
In this article, I present how drawing offers valuable ethnographic possibilities in care settings where verbal communication is challenging. The empirical examples derive from a study where I drew...
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Signs of Nothing: Negotiations Over Semiotic Indeterminacy in Danish Lung Cancer Diagnostics Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-08-21 Michal Frumer
In Denmark, injunctions of “early” cancer diagnosis increasingly imply surveillance of small tissue changes, which may or may not develop into cancer. Based on fieldwork at diagnostic lung cancer c...
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Researching Words without Speaking Them. Language as Care Practice in Multi-Lingual Care Environments in Poland Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-08-15 Luise Schurian-Dąbrowska, Kristine Krause
Being able to speak and understand local languages is regarded as an important prerequisite for conducting fieldwork. In this article we reflect on fieldwork in which we did not speak the local lan...
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Emerging Technologies for Preventing the ‘New’ Dementia: Ambiguous Optimism in the Canadian Context Medical Anthropology (IF 1.5) Pub Date : 2023-08-08 Annette Leibing, Cynthia Lazzaroni, Niklas Petersen
Experts’ views on the use of mostly digital technologies for dementia prevention are characterized by a simultaneity of “gerontechnological optimism” and skeptical hesitancy. Despite the hope for p...