In this paper I explore the link between research into contemporary alternative medical practices (CAM) and activism. It is based on my recent research (2004)(2005)(2006)(2007) which dealt with the interrelatedness and coexistence of biomedical and nonbiomedical systems in the city of Zagreb. The process of adoption and introduction of CAM to Western European countries started some twenty years ago and in Zagreb the process was evident after the fall of communism. My research started with patients and their attitudes towards illness, health, well-being and suffering, factors that determined their choice of therapies and healers. However, hearing stories of people's experiences of CAM propelled me into the role of therapist as listener and, through attending to the silence surrounding the use of CAM in a relatively hostile society, the role of anthropologist as activist. Through the process of understanding and interpreting sensitive cultural practices, I explore whether anthropologists are uniquely placed to actively protect the rights of people to whom they owe their science.
In the last few decades, awareness has been raised about the persistence and increase of domestic violence and intimate partner violence. The initial hypothesis developed here is that toward those forms of violence linked to the most intimate sphere – home – we, as a society, practice spatiotemporal “distancing,” thus allowing for this structural and cultural violence to continue. This paper aims to take up this contemporary theoretical premise in order to analyze historical accounts of cultural practices related to DV and IPV.
This article analyses how the metamorphosis of a state-funded healthcare system into a market-oriented system in Croatia since the 1990s has influenced the health-seeking behaviour of patients. Through in-depth interviews, patients were asked to identify their satisfaction with various health services and providers. Their answers reveal a complex narrative setup in which the possibility to select another healthcare therapy or provider was linked to their “willingness to pay”. The interview responses uncovered inequalities in the context of healthcare, as well as the politics and powers behind allocating and negotiating value in health-seeking.
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