explain anthropology with a related film (The study field is ANTHROPOLOGY)
The Body, Science and Medicine: Emily Martin- Anthropology and the Cultural Study of Science: Questioning the neutrality and objectivity of natural sciences and medicine. Increase in concentration and mobility of capital: Greater misery for the poor (poverty and sickness as viscious circle), longer and healthier lives for the rich. Average life span, 35-78. HIV/AIDs
Martin: Explain the scientific networks through the images and metaphors of citadel, , rhizomes and string figures. Critique of Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT): Too mechanic and neoliberal: Scientists find resources, gather facts through research, gather allies such as NGOs, governments, private companies, publishers etc as supporters. Narrow and fragile networks: Challenge hegemonic knowledge and authority, and create alternatives. Science in action breaks down the walls of citadel. Porous and leaky walls.
Scientists are not only competitive, aggressive and accumulating individuals. Humanitarian and humane aims, non-material benefits and collaboration. Culture shapes the aims. (And the Band Played on-the Movie).
The Citadel- Communal Living and Protection of Lives and Knowledge
Rhizomes: Often discontinuous, fractured, nonlinear, interlinked roots. Bamboo. Labs, clinics and activists, efforts in vain. Different aims and interests of institutions. Anti-vaccination campaigns in the US, fear of autism, free choice, healthy life=> (super) immune system. Turkey, religious context, alternative medicine.
String Figures: Innovative combinations, immunology and public health. Game for a number of people, competitive (who will mess up first)/cooperative (how long can we keep figures moving). Any location, casual, loose, not much material, basic, simple/complicated. Can be repeated, different versions, Thomas Kuhn’s paradigms,scientific perspective. Culture, nonlinear, discontinuous, it celebrates mystery and opacity, mathematical proofs, theories of contagion. Martin: «Give anthropologists a culture, and we will show how utterly science and its laboratories are entangled in it.
Paul Farmer- Structural Violence in Haiti: Historical and biological aspects. Embedded in political, social and economic structure, routinized, taken for granted, not questioned. Extreme political inequality and oppression, dictatorships and sanctions. Includes symbolic violence as well. Talk in honor of Sidney Mintz. Slavery in sugar plantations in Haiti. Silenced histories of slavery, racism and colonialism=> dictatorships under French and then the US influence. Exploitation of labor and raw material. Army’s wellbeing and health> Citizens’ health care Access, villages with no clinics. Clinics without diagnosis, metastatic breast cancer. Luxury in clothing and food at the expanse of torture and humiliation of the slaves.
Deaths of TB and AIDS, endemic to the island. Dispensable bodies. Very little international investment, only Partners in Health: Structural Violence as a theoretical framework and guide for action. Bring cheaper/affordable medicine, infrastructure, village clinics and public health actions (education). Importance of ethnographic research: Living conditions, poverty and malnutrition => AIDS and TB related diseases. Not only cultural voodoo rituals of exchanging blood and traditions of multiple wives, loose marriages, but social and economic strategies.
Healthcare for all?- Ayşecan Terzioğlu: Political, legal, economic, cultural and social difficulties of being a refugee in Turkey. Syrians in the hospital context. Racist, discriminatory, generalizing, essentializing discourses against Arabs. (NOT Sexism of Arabs!!) Even if Arabs with money and no contested political and social identity, coming to Turkey for medical tourism suffer from those discourses. Syrian refugees much more so. Blamed as bringing diseases from Syria and constantly reproducing (actually it is for economic and cultural survival). The thick boundaries between social sciences and medicine, although health IS a cultural and social issue.
Taking care of the others seen as a professional burden. Language, translation and bureaucratic problems.
Neoliberal view of health: Health as a basic human right => Health as an individual responsibility. Investment in privatization, private medical schools and hospitals.