Global Health, Local Healing

Short Description

Most people will experience illness at some point in their life. How this dis-ease of the body will be experienced, made sense of and treated varies cross-culturally. This course sets out to examine some of this cross-cultural variation in understanding and treating illness and disease through focusing on health and healing within local settings and within the context of the global pharmaceutical industry. The course will highlight the role of narrative in processes of 'sense-making' in order to examine the spaces between narrative, meaning and action.

Assessment

This course will be assessed by a 3000-word essay (60%) and a one-hour, one-question exam (40%). Students will have a choice of exam questions, but must chose one on a topic that is different from their assessed essay. Students will normally receive feedback on their assessed essay before the exam.

By the end of this course students should be able to:

· Demonstrate an awareness of global diversity in health systems and practice;

· Articulate a critical understanding of global and regional health inequalities;

· Discuss and critically compare anthropological analyses of disease and health management;

· Effectively analyse ways in which health, illness and disease are constructed cross-culturally;

· Demonstrate an awareness of the ethical, methodological and policy issues raised by anthropological research on health and illness;

· Critically evaluate and compare different systems of thought and behaviour;

· Structure ideas effectively both orally and in written forms, work effectively independently and in groups, and develop effective time management skills.