An Anthropology of Biomedicine

Front Cover
John Wiley & Sons, Jan 9, 2018 - Social Science - 560 pages

In this fully revised and updated second edition of An Anthropology of Biomedicine, authors Lock and Nguyen introduce biomedicine from an anthropological perspective, exploring the entanglement of material bodies with history, environment, culture, and politics. Drawing on historical and ethnographic work, the book critiques the assumption made by the biological sciences of a universal human body that can be uniformly standardized. It focuses on the ways in which the application of biomedical technologies brings about radical changes to societies at large based on socioeconomic inequalities and ethical disputes, and develops and integrates the theory that the human body in health and illness is not an ontological given but a moveable, malleable entity.

This second edition includes new chapters on: microbiology and the microbiome; global health; and, the self as a socio-technical system. In addition, all chapters have been comprehensively revised to take account of developments from within this fast-paced field, in the intervening years between publications. References and figures have also been updated throughout.

This highly-regarded and award-winning textbook (Winner of the 2010 Prose Award for Archaeology and Anthropology) retains the character and features of the previous edition. Its coverage remains broad, including discussion of: biomedical technologies in practice; anthropologies of medicine; biology and human experiments; infertility and assisted reproduction; genomics, epigenomics, and uncertain futures; and molecularizing racial difference, ensuring it remains the essential text for students of anthropology, medical anthropology as well as public and global health.

 

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Contents

Other editions - View all

An Anthropology of Biomedicine
Margaret M. Lock,Vinh-Kim Nguyen
Limited preview - 2018
An Anthropology of Biomedicine
Margaret Lock,Vinh-Kim Nguyen
Limited preview - 2018

Common terms and phrases

Accessed Africa American amongst antibiotics argues associated assumption Berkeley biological biomedical technologies biomedicine Biopolitics birth blood brain death brain-dead California Press Cambridge University Press cancer cell Chapter Chicago China clinical trials colonial commodification concept countries Culture diagnosis disease donation donors drugs Duke University Duke University Press Durham Ebola economic edited effects emerged environment epidemic epidemiological epigenetic ethical ethnographic evidence experience fertility Foucault Gender genes genetic testing genome global health groups History increasingly India individuals infertility Inhorn International interventions Japan Journal kidney knowledge living London Margaret Lock Medical Anthropology Medicine Menopause modern molecular moral one-child policy organ transplants patients pharmaceutical political population practices programmes Psychiatry public health Race racial Reproductive Technologies result risk Routledge Science scientific scientists sex selection social Society sperm standardized subjects symptoms theory therapeutic tissue transformed treatment University of California women York

About the author (2018)

MARGARET LOCK is Professor Emerita at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, Dept. of Social Studies of Medicine and Dept. of Anthropology. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Officier de L'Ordre national du Québec, Officer of the Order of Canada, and an elected Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Author and/or co-editor of 18 books and over 220 articles, Lock is a medical anthropologist whose work focuses on embodiment, comparative epistemologies of medical knowledge, and the global impact of biomedical technologies.

VINH-KIM NGUYEN is Professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland and at the University of Montreal, Canada. He is also Chair of Anthropology and Global Health at the Collège d'Études mondiales in Paris. He is a medical anthropologist and practicing physician who practices in infectious diseases and emergency care and has worked on the frontlines of global health efforts particularly in West Africa since 1994.

Bibliographic information

TitleAn Anthropology of Biomedicine
AuthorsMargaret M. Lock, Vinh-Kim Nguyen
Edition2
PublisherJohn Wiley & Sons, 2018
ISBN1119069157, 9781119069157
Length560 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Medical / General
Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social
Social Science / Sociology / General
  
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