The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
by Anne Fadiman · Anne Fadiman
Reported account of a Hmong child with epilepsy in California and the clash between her family's understanding of her illness and her doctors'. Illustrates how cultural mismatch and interpreter failure shape clinical outcomes.
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More resources on Medical Anthropology
medanthro.net
MedAnthro.net is a resource hub for medical anthropology, featuring scholarly articles, course materials, and curated reading lists to support students and researchers.
Medical Anthropology Quarterly
Peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Medical Anthropology, published by Wiley on AnthroSource. Carries ethnographic and theoretical research on illness, healing systems, and health policy, showing how the field frames sickness as a social and cultural process.
somatosphere.net
Somatosphere is an online hub for medical anthropology and health humanities, featuring a regularly updated blog with ethnographic essays, commentary, and field notes. It also hosts a curated directory of related journals, books, podcasts, and other resources for researchers and students.
Pathologies of Power
Physician-anthropologist's essays drawing on work in Haiti, Russia, and Peru to argue that structural violence, meaning poverty, racism, and political repression, determines who gets sick and who is treated. Connects human rights arguments to concrete clinical and epidemiological evidence.
Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies
Ethnography of Triqui migrant farmworkers, following them from Oaxaca across the border to Washington berry fields. Readers come away understanding how labor hierarchies, immigration policy, and clinical encounters together produce the injuries and illnesses these workers carry.