Diverse bodies: the challenge of new theoretical approaches to medical anthropology

Cohn, Simon; Lynch, Richard

doi:10.1080/13648470.2017.1334395

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The identification of the variables relevant to handle the analysis followed several steps. First, upon careful study of the available literature, it was considered appropriate to identify categories from the areas of medical sociology [39] and anthropology [40], as well as some general attributes, to capture the essence of the medical discourse expressed in the selected material. Table 1 reports this step in column Area .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, upon careful study of the available literature, it was considered appropriate to identify categories from the areas of medical sociology [39] and anthropology [40], as well as some general attributes, to capture the essence of the medical discourse expressed in the selected material. assessed by a sociologist and an anthropologist for the socio-anthropological variables each on a subset of articles, and by a systems biologist for the general variables and for inference on the FMT study, using the controlled MeSH vocabulary [34], where appropriate.…”

Section: Materials -Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Semi-automated socio-anthropologic analysis of themedical discourseon rheumatoid arthritis: potential impact in public health

Nardini

Candelise

Turrini

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The debilitating effects of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and the accompanying chronic inflammation, represent a significant obstacle for the sustainability of our development, with efforts being spread worldwide to contrast NCDs’ diffusion, as per the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 3). In fact, despite efforts of variable intensities in numerous directions (from innovations in biotechnology to lifestyle modifications), NCDs’ incidence remains pandemic.The present work wants to contribute to this major concern with a specific focus on the fragmentation of the medical approaches, via an interdisciplinary analysis of the medical discourse, i.e. the heterogenous reporting that biomedical scientific literature uses to describe the anti-inflammatory therapeutic landscape in NCDs. The aim is to better capture the roots of this compartmentalization and the power relations existing among three segregated pharmacological, experimental and unstandardized biomedical approaches, to ultimately empower collaboration beyond medical specialties and possibly untap a more ample and effective reservoir of integrated therapeutic opportunities.Using as exemplar disease rheumatoid arthritis (RA), twenty-eight articles were manually translated each into a nine-dimensional categorical variable of medical socio-anthropological relevance, relating in particular (but not only) to legitimacy, temporality and spatialization. This digitalized picture (9 × 28 table) of the medical discourse was further analyzed by simple automatic learning approaches to identify differences and highlight commonalities among the biomedical categories.Interpretation of these results gives original insights including the suggestion to: empower scientific communication between unstandardized approaches and basic biology; promote non-pharmacological therapies repurposing to enhance robustness of experimental approaches; align the spatial representation of diseases and therapies in pharmacology to effectively embrace the systemic approach promoted by modern personalized and preventive medicines. We hope this original work may expand and foster interdisciplinarity among public health stakeholders, ultimately contributing to the achievement of SGD3.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Materials -Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Semi-automated socio-anthropologic analysis of themedical discourseon rheumatoid arthritis: potential impact in public health

Nardini

Candelise

Turrini

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…Though not as provocative as shamans transforming into reindeer, this enactment troubles, nonetheless, the persistent Western/non-Western dichotomy that props up most ontological inquiries (Bertoni, 2012; Harris and Robb, 2012). Importantly, as medical anthropologists Cohn and Lynch (2017: 136) emphasize, “[t]he juxtaposition of these realities may not always be in terms of cultural differences across large distances.” Rather, it is “often the close and proximal ways in which diverse ontologies sometimes contradict, sometimes cohere, and at times manifestly compete with each other” (Cohn and Lynch, 2017: 136). Alterity, therefore, may not be as radical as portrayed, but simply the norm (Graeber, 2015).…”

Section: The Many and The Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Sketchbook archaeology: Bodies multiple and the archives they create

Novak

2022

Journal of Social Archaeology

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Archaeological bodies and their afflictions have multiplied in recent years, along with the specialists who study them. The result is a cascade of data, much of it difficult to reconcile. I argue that variable enactments of disease, rather than reflecting an epistemological disconnect or difference in scale, engender ontological gaps. To pursue these malleable matters, I trace the proliferation of “cancer” from the Spring Street Presbyterian Church burial vaults (1820–1850) in Manhattan. To explore the struggles involved in making many things one, I consider emergent multiplicities of this “disease” within specialists’ laboratories, archival records, and the writing process. Rather than force these different cancers to cohere, or make one “win” based on disciplinary domain (science/humanities) or hierarchy of substance (bone/paper), I rely on Stengers’s (2018) ecology of partial connects. The outcome is not a rubric of knowledge gained, but a sketchbook of lessons learned with bodies multiple along the way.

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“…Anthropology also has picked up the phrase, with authors often pointing to STS as at least one important source of their inspiration (e.g. Cohn and Lynch, 2014). And the possible ontological turn has generated some opposition.…”

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confidence: 99%

Ontological turns, turnoffs and roundabouts

Sismondo

2015

Soc Stud Sci

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There has been much talk of an 'ontological turn' in Science and Technology Studies. This commentary explores some recent work on multiple and historical ontologies, especially articles published in this journal, against a background of constructivism. It can be tempting to read an ontological turn as based and promoting a version of perspectivism, but that is inadequate to the scholarly work and opens multiple ontologies to serious criticisms. Instead, we should read our ontological turn or turns as being about multiplicities of practices and the ways in which these practices shape the material world. Ontologies arise out of practices through which people engage with things; the practices are fundamental and the ontologies derivative. The purchase in this move comes from the elucidating power of the verbs that scholars use to analyze relations of practices and objects--which turn out to be specific cases of constructivist verbs. The difference between this ontological turn and constructivist work in Science and Technology Studies appears to be a matter of emphases found useful for different purposes.

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Diverse bodies: the challenge of new theoretical approaches to medical anthropology

Cited by 7 publications

References 37 publications

Semi-automated socio-anthropologic analysis of themedical discourseon rheumatoid arthritis: potential impact in public health

Semi-automated socio-anthropologic analysis of themedical discourseon rheumatoid arthritis: potential impact in public health

Sketchbook archaeology: Bodies multiple and the archives they create

Ontological turns, turnoffs and roundabouts

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