X-Rays, Spirits, and Witches

Understanding Health and Illness in Ethnographic Context

Julian M. Murchison

Based on primary research conducted in Tanzania over the last fifteen years, X-Rays, Spirits, and Witches, provides an ethnography specifically designed for use in medical anthropology classes. The text is organized around four key topics that are recurrent themes in medical anthropology across diverse settings: medical pluralism, illness narratives, embodied experiences of health and illness, and the multilayered ways that power dynamics influence healthcare.
In addition to telling an engaging story of health, illness, and medical treatment as experienced in a real-world setting, the chapters link anthropological terms and concepts to specific events. Unobtrusive in-text definitions as well as a complementary glossary of terms help students recognize and employ the language of medical anthropology. Short pull-out boxes explore key concepts (such as the idea of “the medical gaze”) and highlight for further consideration issues which are of particular relevance in the medical anthropology classroom. Such pedagogical elements are designed to complement but not bog down the ethnography—enabling students to make better connections between real-world research and core textbook concepts.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 162 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4422-6739-8 • Hardback • September 2017 • $98.00 • (£75.00)

978-1-4422-6740-4 • Paperback • September 2017 • $39.00 • (£30.00)

978-1-4422-6741-1 • eBook • September 2017 • $37.00 • (£30.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / General

X-Rays, Spirits, and Witches

Understanding Health and Illness in Ethnographic Context

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Based on primary research conducted in Tanzania over the last fifteen years, X-Rays, Spirits, and Witches, provides an ethnography specifically designed for use in medical anthropology classes. The text is organized around four key topics that are recurrent themes in medical anthropology across diverse settings: medical pluralism, illness narratives, embodied experiences of health and illness, and the multilayered ways that power dynamics influence healthcare.
In addition to telling an engaging story of health, illness, and medical treatment as experienced in a real-world setting, the chapters link anthropological terms and concepts to specific events. Unobtrusive in-text definitions as well as a complementary glossary of terms help students recognize and employ the language of medical anthropology. Short pull-out boxes explore key concepts (such as the idea of “the medical gaze”) and highlight for further consideration issues which are of particular relevance in the medical anthropology classroom. Such pedagogical elements are designed to complement but not bog down the ethnography—enabling students to make better connections between real-world research and core textbook concepts.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 162 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4422-6739-8 • Hardback • September 2017 • $98.00 • (£75.00)

978-1-4422-6740-4 • Paperback • September 2017 • $39.00 • (£30.00)

978-1-4422-6741-1 • eBook • September 2017 • $37.00 • (£30.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / General

Author

Julian M. Murchison is head of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology at Eastern Michigan University. He has taught a wide range of courses, including Health & Illness, Ethnography of East Africa, and Ethnographic Research & Writing. He has conducted ethnographic research in Tanzania for more than fifteen years. He is the author of Ethnography Essentials (2009).

Table of Contents

1: Background and Context
2: Medical Pluralism
3: Managing and Negotiating Therapy
4: Embodied Health and Illness
5: Power and Health
6: Alphabet Soup: The Effects of HIV/AIDS and ART
7: Conclusion

Reviews

Murchison’s carefully crafted monograph, based on extensive fieldwork in southeastern Tanzania, blends straight-forward writing and lucid ethnographic case studies with medical anthropology’s conceptual legacy. This engaging work explains and applies terms such as medical pluralism, therapy management, therapeutic itinerary, embodiment, divination, narrative and more in paragraphs comprehensible to undergraduate students and scholars alike. Highly recommended.
— John M. Janzen, professor emeritus University of Kansas - Lawrence