General Information Address Medical Anthropology and Sociology Unit University of Amsterdam Oudezijds Achterburgwal 185 1012 DK Amsterdam The Netherlands Phone: ++31 20 525 4779 / 4703 Fax: ++31 20 525 3010 e-mail: amma@fmg.uva.nl What are Medical Anthropology, Medical Sociology and Medical Science Dynamics?

The Medical Anthropology and Sociology Unit

The Medical Anthropology and Sociology Unit at the University of Amsterdam is located in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. The Unit is involved in teaching four master programmes, it runs special courses in its field, both in the university and abroad, it is responsible for training and supervising PhD students, it carries out scientific and applied research, it organizes conferences and other academic meetings, it publishes a journal and several book series and it maintains links with a large number of other institutions in and outside The Netherlands to carry out the above tasks. This website provides information about all activities of the Unit.

What are Medical Anthropology, Medical Sociology and Medical Science Dynamics?

Medical anthropology studies illness and health from a social-cultural perspective. The anthropology of illness implies the study of socio-cultural phenomena related to what is called 'illness'. The study focuses on factors leading to illness, and also on the concept of illness itself. What illness is and how illness is determined and experienced varies culturally.

The theoretical relevance of medical anthropology is its contribution to the continuous anthropological discussion about 'nature' or 'nurture'. Illness and health are experiences in which 'biology' and 'culture' intertwine. What culture and society are and do, can be eminently studied in situations of ill health and health seeking.

The practical relevance of medical anthropology focuses on health care. In medical anthropology, it is usual to distinguish anthropology in medicine and anthropology of medicine. The first concept points to anthropology as an applied science. Anthropological insights enable health workers to practice more efficiently.

The general objective of all courses in medical anthropology is to obtain knowledge of theories and methods of medical anthropology and to gain better insight into social and cultural processes related to health, well-being and health care. Students learn to apply their knowledge and understandings in both practical and scientific work.

Medical sociology is part of a broader research group that deals with participation, citizenship and the welfare state. Health and health care arrangements are studied at different levels of integration. Individual experiences and emotions concerning health and illness are related to daily health practices, at home and in institutions; to interactions between clients and professionals; and to broader social phenomena like patterns of social stratification, changes in the welfare state in a neo-liberal political climate, professionalization and risk calculation.

We emphasise practices in which health, illness, bodies, patients and professionals actually come about. At the same time, this constructivist and relativist stance is balanced with an applied perspective: how medical sociology can actually contribute to understanding and improving health. A theoretical orientation and a policy interest go together.

Health problems have a distinct appearance in late -modern societies. We see more care next to established forms of cure. Infectious diseases are still relevant, but outweighed by chronic and degenerative conditions. Health and illness have also been displaced in many ways. Epidemiological thinking has brought everyday life under a state of proto-sickness. Eating, exercising, working and many more activities are viewed as health threat or advantage. Nowadays magazines, television, Internet and supermarkets are providing health products and information.

At the same time, there are numerous battles about the status of health conditions: some conditions are 'claimed' as diseases by their bearers while in other cases patient organizations try to free themselves from medical labels.

Medical Science Dynamics: The focus here is on the processes by which new knowledge of health and illnesses is generated, legitimated, and deployed in different societies and cultures. One aspect of this is the ways in which specific conditions (eg autism) become redefined. Another is the development, evaluation and use of new health care technologies (taking this term very broadly to include not only diagnostic instruments but also tests, drugs, vaccines, surgical procedures, prostheses…). It is a highly interdisciplinary field of work, involving collaboration not only with anthropologists and sociologists, but with historians of medicine, health policy analysts, and the field known as Health Technology Assessment.

The idea that medical science is the path to greater efficacy and efficiency in medical practice has been a guiding vision for biomedical researchers since at least the 19th century. It played an important role in the professionalization of medicine and in subsequent processes of specialization. Today medical science promises so much. The promise is constantly stressed and is highly visible in western culture. But at the same time many developments are seen as problematic: raising ethical problems; calling fundamental dichotomies and distinctions (live/dead; human/machine) into question; adding to inequalities in health and in health care. Medical science dynamics seeks to understand these processes of changing knowledge and changing practice, and the ways in which hopes, expectations (whether of cure or of profit), authority and doubt bear upon them.