Cultural crossings of care: An appeal to the medical humanities

Abstract

Modern medicine is confronted with cultural crossings in various forms. In facing these challenges, it is not enough to simply increase our insight into the cultural dimensions of health and well-being. We must, more radically, question the conventional distinction between the ‘objectivity of science’ and the ‘subjectivity of culture’. This obligation creates an urgent call for the medical humanities but also for a fundamental rethinking of their grounding assumptions.Julia Kristeva (JK) has problematised the biomedical concept of health through her reading of the anthropogony of Cura (Care), who according to the Roman myth created man out of a piece of clay. JK uses this fable as an allegory for the cultural distinction between health construed as a ‘definitive state’, which belongs to biological life (bios), and healing as a durative ‘process with twists and turns in time’ that characterises human living (zoe). A consequence of this demarcation is that biomedicine is in constant need of ‘repairing’ and bridging the gap between bios and zoe, nature and culture. Even in radical versions, the medical humanities are mostly reduced to such an instrument of repairment, seeing them as what we refer to as a soft, ‘subjective’ and cultural supplement to a stable body of ‘objective’, biomedical and scientific knowledge. In this article, we present a prolegomenon to a more radical programme for the medical humanities, which calls the conventional distinctions between the humanities and the natural sciences into question, acknowledges the pathological and healing powers of culture, and sees the body as a complex biocultural fact. A key element in such a project is the rethinking of the concept of ‘evidence’ in healthcare.

On allegations of invasive species denialism

“…Medical science, for example, is routinely critiqued for its cultural judgments, and the values of its scientists and practitioners, and how those interact with the diversity of values held by patients (e.g., Kristeva et al. ; Te Karu et al. ; White et al.…”

“…Medicine, for example, routinely receives and responds constructively to critique from other disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, and philosophy (Kristeva et al. ; Metz & Harris ; Panter‐Brick & Eggerman ).…”

“…4, 2019 and debated by its scientists. Medical science, for example, is routinely critiqued for its cultural judgments, and the values of its scientists and practitioners, and how those interact with the diversity of values held by patients (e.g., Kristeva et al 2018;Te Karu et al 2018;White et al 2018). By reflecting on, and working with those values, medical science and scientists seek to modify and adapt the purpose, objectives, and outcomes of medical science to better serve its globally diverse public.…”

Myths and social structure: The unbearable necessity of mythology in medical education

“…Medicine, notwithstanding its dominant mythology of knowledge, continues to hold beliefs that have no “scientific” basis. For instance, the belief that “medicine is a culture of no culture” and the distinction between “the objectivity of science” and the “subjectivity of culture”, particularly as it plays out in the illness experience, further highlight the place for myth in medical education . In problematising this longstanding belief system in medicine and medical education, we do not want to merely “bust” the notion that we can ever maintain a neutral, objective scientific orientation and practice in the study and application of medicine.…”

Samarbeidsklimaendringer. Om humanistiskeog filosofiske livsbetingelser i en posthumanistisk tid

“…Dette siste er en reell risiko i vår tid, kanskje saerlig i livs-og helsevitenskapelig sammenheng (Kristeva, Moro, Ødemark, & Engebretsen, 2017). Slike fallgruver unngår man ved å minne seg om at det finnes forskningsspørsmål som, om de ikke eksklusivt tilhører humaniora, fordrer en humanistisk tilnaerming.…”