Curare. Journal of Medical Anthropology

CALL FOR PAPERS Krisen, Körper, Kompetenzen. Methoden und Potentiale medizin anthropologischen Forschens

Die Redaktion — 2024-06-06

An Interdisciplinary Analysis of “Holism” in Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Jürgen W. Dollmann — 2022-09-01

Treatments in complementary and alternative medicine are regularly articulated and adopted via the concept of “holism”, involving body, mind, and soul. This concept, which is at the heart of this contribution, is not only brought up in distinction to conventional medicine, but often connected to spiritual ideas. One reason for this can be seen in the fact that many treatments in complementary and alternative medicine such as Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine descend from South Asian and East Asian contexts and are – in part – derived from religious or philosophical traditions. The author, who is both, a specialist in internal medicine as well as a scholar of culture, brings together historical and culture-the-oretical aspects of “holism” with insights from cognitive
science and neuroscience. The author’s research findings from the context of Ayurveda are discussed paradigmatically. To integrate this interdisciplinary analysis, this paper makes use of so-called theories of embodiment, which allow to analyze the sensorial experience of social actors in the given field of research. From this perspective, the notion of “holism” can be regarded as compatible with spiritual aspects of treatments from complementary and alternative medicine. At the heart of this contribution lies the inquiry as to how and why patients can sensually experience “holism”. The question pertaining to the efficacy of such medical treatments is not touched upon. The positionality of the author is explicitly interdisciplinary and multi-perspectival which intends to reveal the blind spots of various medical treatments. The methodical triangulation presented here can lead to ambiguities which should be seen as a stimulation for further discussion between culture-theoretical and (natural)science-oriented perspectives. In sum, several suggestions are offered to counteract the exclusionary discourse of various healing systems. The goal is to further promote integrative medicine.

Visual Expressions of Health, Illness and Healing

Helmar Kurz — 2022-09-01

Die Ruhe nach dem Sturm? Medikalisierte Alltage in Zeiten der Covid-19-Pandemie

Anna Palm — 2022-09-01

Teaching Multiplicities

Lisa Lehner — 2022-09-01

„Teaching Multiplicities. Von der Arbeit mit multi-medialen Arbeiten“

On Bodies and Our Own Bodies

María Fernanda Olarte-Sierra — 2022-09-01

"On Bodies and Our Own Bodies. Care and Vulnerability When Teaching about Death and Loss"

The Beginnings and Ends of Life as a Magnifying Glass for Ethnographic Research

Julia Rehsmann — 2024-03-14

Afterlife Reverberations

Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves — 2022-09-01

Can ethical choices outlive the people who make them? In order to explore this uestion, this article draws on ethnographic research on transnational assisted suicide to uestion afterlife implications of practices of un/naming, particularly the use of anonymisation and pseudonyms. Assisted suicide is organised around a specic politics of naming that animates its ght for social and political recognition but which contradicts anthropology’s once long-standing disposition towards anonymity as a form of protecting research participants. This dissonance creates a situation where one of anthropology’s main tools of protection risks eopardising the political struggles and ght for recognition of the same people it seeks to protect. Against this background, this reflection argues that empirically researching death and dying reuires an additional sensitivity to un/naming practices. Thus, I propose the notion of afterlife reverberations, that is, the aects and expectations that ripple in the aftermath of a research participant’s death from their research choices made in life.

Liminal Asymmetries

Mira Menzfeld — 2022-09-01

The article presents one option for an anthropologically informed understanding of onto-hierarchical particularities that can characterize and shape relationships between non-dying persons (e. g. researchers) and dying interlocutors. The article draws on research with responsive and conscious persons who 1) suer from a terminal illness, 2) have been informed about their terminal prognosis, and 3) regard their diagnosis as reliable information about their own dying. The classic Turnerian ideas of threshold and transition dynamics are applied to make sense of liminal asymmetry as an important factor that permeates research relations with consciously dying persons and can sometimes create challenging situations during eldwork. Liminal asymmetries are characterized by at least three dimensions. First, as dying persons are in a betwixt-and-between’ state, they often desire liminal companionship and guidance when dying. (Persons who are not terminally ill are inherently incapable of adeuately fullling the role of liminal guide or companion because they are not in a state of betwixt-and-between.) Second, the experience of hierarchy is crucial, as the dying have privileged access to a mode of being that the non-dying have not yet entered. Third, as another existential hierarchy, dying persons – having accepted a terminal diagnosis as a reliable statement about their presence and future – usually consider their state of being, agency, and vitality to be less privileged than that of non-dying persons. By acknowledging liminal asymmetries as formative for experiences of dying, we gain an additional tool for understanding research situations in which liminal asymmetries are directly or indirectly thematized. The article describes two exemplary eldwork scenarios to illustrate the types of situation identied as arenas for negotiating the (im)possibilities of liminal companionship and liminal guidance, as well as capability-related hierarchies.

Uncomfortable Care

Molly Fitzpatrick — 2024-03-14

When doing research at the beginning and end of life, ethnographers often feel the urge to engage in the care of the people they are studying. In this paper, I reflect on my attempts to provide care as a volunteer doula, a non-medical birth support person, while conducting ethnographic eldwork on childbirth in two midwifery clinics in Bali, Indonesia. Becoming a doula-ethnographer meant going beyond silent observation – what might be called being 'there' – 'to be with' women in labour. In this article, I explore this mode of being with, and show how it centres on witnessing, letting things happen, and not going in with an agenda. As my experiences show, caring in the mode of being with was also often uncomfortable and riddled with complex ethical considerations. In this paper, I stay with and reflect on this discomfort to show how the aective negotiations of my attempts to care for women in labour led me to crucial ethnographic insights.

Researching Pandemics from Below

Janina Kehr — 2022-09-01

Forschungspraxis, Diskriminierungsformen und Handlungsmöglichkeiten in der Pflege, Versorgung und Betreuung von trans*-Kindern und -Jugendlichen

Manuel Bolz — 2022-09-01

In unserem Forschungsbericht stellen wir unser empirisches Forschungsdesign, erste Ergebnisse des Verbundprojektes TRANS*KIDS und des Hamburger Teilprojektes vor. Unser Projekt hat zum Ziel, (potenzielle) Diskriminierungen und Stigmatisierungen von professionell Pflegenden und (medizinischen) Fach- und Verwaltungsangestellten in Kliniken und in Ärzt*innenpraxen im Umgang mit trans*-Kindern und -Jugendlichen herauszuarbeiten. Diese, so zeigt es unsere Auswertung, zeigen sich als Hindernis für eine wertschätzende, diversitäts- und geschlechtssensible Pflege, Betreuung und Versorgung. Der Beitrag fungiert als Werkstattbericht um die Forschungspraxis, das Material und die Methode vorzustellen, zu diskutieren und kritisch zu evaluieren.

Zusammenfassung der Beiträge 45 (2022) 2

Die Redaktion — 2024-04-17

Article abstracts of Curare 45 (2022) 2

Die Redaktion — 2022-12-31

Article abstracts.

Résumés des articles Curare 45 (2022) 2