Medical Anthropology

Arthur Kleinman's foundational distinction between disease, the biomedical definition of a pathological condition, and illness, the patient's subjective experience of suffering and its social meaning. This framework highlights that clinical treatment of a biological disorder may fail if it ignores the cultural context of the patient's lived experience.

The set of beliefs and expectations that patients, families, and practitioners hold about a specific episode of sickness, including its causes, expected course, appropriate treatment, and social consequences. Different explanatory models between provider and patient can lead to miscommunication and poor adherence.

A concept advanced by Paul Farmer describing how social structures such as poverty, racism, and political oppression systematically harm certain populations by limiting their access to healthcare, nutrition, clean water, and other necessities. The violence is 'structural' because it is embedded in the organization of society rather than inflicted by individual actors.

The coexistence of multiple medical systems within a single society, including biomedicine, traditional healing, religious healing, and complementary or alternative therapies. Most people worldwide navigate among these systems depending on the illness, cost, accessibility, and perceived efficacy.

The process by which non-medical problems become defined and treated as medical conditions, typically through the application of diagnostic labels, pharmaceutical treatments, or clinical interventions. Medicalization can expand access to care but also pathologize normal human variation.

The comparative study of how different cultures classify and treat illness, including the materia medica (healing substances), diagnostic techniques, and therapeutic rituals employed by healers in diverse societies. It treats all medical systems, including biomedicine, as cultural constructs worthy of analysis.

A concept developed by Paul Rabinow describing new forms of social identity and community that emerge around shared biological or genetic conditions. Rather than biology being understood through social categories, social groups form around biological knowledge.

In Kleinman's tripartite framework, sickness refers to the social role and identity assigned to a person recognized as unwell, encompassing how society legitimizes or stigmatizes particular conditions and shapes the expectations placed on sick individuals.

A theoretical orientation that analyzes how global political-economic forces, power asymmetries, and class structures shape health outcomes, the distribution of disease, and access to healthcare. It situates health disparities within broader systems of inequality rather than attributing them to individual choices or cultural deficits.

The sequence of healing strategies and practitioners that a patient consults over the course of an illness episode, reflecting their evolving interpretation of the problem and shifting social pressures. Tracking therapeutic itineraries reveals how patients actively navigate plural medical landscapes.