Medical Anthropology最新文献

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 language - Polish - but in which we could still learn something about a central practice in our field sites: how language was implicated in practices of care. Hanging out as linguistically constricted researchers propelled us to research situations in which care was done through using words as sounds and practices, rather than relying on meanings, and to relate to not sharing a language in new ways.

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 bringing a cycle to completion is not an easy task for egg donors. Selecting a clinic, understanding their own biocapital in the industry and how to invest it, fitting the cycle into their lives, and managing pain and emotions become crucial parts of their work. I argue that these activities constitute a vast amount of labor that, although essential for the generation of value in reproductive bioeconomies, remains invisible and undertheorized.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control employs Community-Based Organizations (CBO) to conduct mass testing on "hidden" Men who have Sex with Men (MSM). Testing MSMs is intended to make risky bodies legible to the state and discipline the CBOs around narrow health goals. However, detailed ethnographic fieldwork with MSM CBOs in southwest China demonstrates that pressures to achieve HIV testing quotas produce the need to "water-down" or manipulate data. This distorts the identities and practices of MSMs from state surveillance and builds collusive partnerships between CBOs and low-level government officials to mitigate the disciplinary impacts of strict audits.

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 and illegal. This can potentially lead to suspension from drug treatment programs, resulting in clients finding the next most suitable treatment center to enroll into. I argue that the close interaction between drug treatment centers and illegal markets results in new pharmaceutical dependencies, forms of self-care as well as suspicions toward, but also among clients, about their intentions to recover.

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 progress in dementia prevention through preventive technologies, experts also point to the complexity of prevention, the importance of environmental factors and public health policies, and the danger of an excessive focus on individual interventions. Without questioning the positive impact such technologies can have on many people, we claim that the experts' ambiguity reveals a deeper concern, a kind of "cruel optimism" that is based on a fantasy of "supported autonomy".

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 responding to medications. Rates of antibiotic consumption in Spain are among the highest in Europe. Drawing on research conducted in Catalonia, in this article we present findings from ethnographic fieldwork and semi-structured interviews with general practitioners, residents of Barcelona, and professionals who have worked in antibiotic stewardship. We argue that the circulation of antibiotics should be understood in relation to broader historical processes and the deficient systems of health and social care provision they have produced.

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 widespread uneasiness about the subject, especially among the intended beneficiaries. We argue that the refugees and their health care providers face a dilemma: on the one hand, the desire to make mental health issues visible and clinically actionable through datafication and, on the other hand, the wish to keep mental health issues out of public view to avoid potential stigma.

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, and other toxic chemicals on a daily basis. In this article, we show how the coca growers' relationship with chemicals and the health risks to which they are exposed, are politically and institutionally structured. We discuss the specific impact of anti-narcotics policy in a broader context of deep inequalities and document the emergent and adaptive day-to-day attempts of the farmers to navigate the structural risk environment.

Influenced by nutritional science, feeding children is generally thought of in terms of children's health and well-being. Here, I ask whether child veganism, with its focus on animal welfare and environmental concerns, challenges this model. Drawing from reproductive studies, I focus on Swiss vegan parents' ideas about food to illuminate a "multispecies," less anthropocentric form of childcare. While their ethic opens up new perspectives on health and childcare, I discuss how "sustainable" reproductive practices can also solidify gender stereotypes and modes of ordering species.