ATH 341 - Health & Healing in Latin America

1 course unit

This seminar explores social and cultural aspects of health, illness, and healing in contemporary Latin America. We will analyze ethnographic research on ethno-medical belief systems, ritual and religious healing, botanical and other forms of popular medicine, local adaptations of biomedical knowledge, and state-provided public health care. Students will examine meanings and experiences of suffering and well-being as they play out in Latin American settings, while reflecting on relationships between knowledge and practice, social inequalities (like those of gender, class, and ethnicity), and power and agency in medicine.
Prerequisite(s): ATH 112 Cultural Anthropology .