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Illness and Healing - ANTX202

The unit offers an introduction to medical anthropology and cross-cultural beliefs relating to illness and healing. Different notions about disease causality are examined, as well as the way in which disease has social as well as biological origins. Healing practices, including Western biomedicine, are treated as being inevitably predicated on cultural systems of understanding. Specific topics include the abnormal, culture bound syndromes, body techniques, witchcraft, shamanism, placebos and the 'meaning effect', discipline, social suffering, illness narratives, the relationship between illness and social experience, clinical encounters and changing concepts of mental health.

All enrolment queries should be directed to Open Universities Australia (OUA): see www.open.edu.au

When Offered:

S1 OUA - Session 1, offered through Open Universities Australia

S2 OUA - Session 2, offered through Open Universities Australia

Staff Contact(s): Dr Kevin Groark
Assessed As: Graded
Offered By:

Department of Anthropology

Faculty of Arts

Course structures, including unit offerings, are subject to change.
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