Anthropology and the Study of Culture

Abstract

In this chapter we will consider the role of anthropology and the study of culture in the health humanities. Whilst there is a long tradition of medical anthropology — a field which has its own journals and many books — the relationship between this and the humanities has been less frequently thought about in a systematic way. Anthropology as it has classically been thought of, is a comparative discipline concerned with patterns in human societies, in relation to cultural, social, psychological and biological dimensions. Belief systems, rituals, patterns of child rearing, family and kinship structure, language, ways of spending spare time, ways of making a living as well as the thorny topics of health and disease all play a part in anthropology. The field has a broad geographical and historical outlook. It deals not only with that small proportion of humankind in Europe and North America but with cultures and societies of the entire world. In its historic interests it can cover questions of human origins and our prehistoric past through to problems and dilemmas in the present day. It is also, along with philosophy, one of the oldest kinds of human inquiry. The intellectuals of classical antiquity puzzled over the differences and similarities between groups of people, and in the present day anthropology has contributed to disciplines as diverse as cognitive science, forensics, studies of diversity and ethnicity, linguistics and evolutionary studies.