AP/ANTH 3200 3.00 The Anthropology of Global Health
Global health is a multidisciplinary field that endeavours to improve health and work towards health equity for all people worldwide. This course explores the field of global health from a critical anthropological perspective. It will provide students with an understanding of the deep historical and political roots of public health and health systems challenges in low resource settings around the world, a critical overview of the history of international health policies, bureaucracies, & agencies, as well as ethnographic descriptions & analyses of health development projects around the world today. Specific health topics may include infectious diseases, sexual & reproductive health, child survival, hunger & malnutrition, the integration of traditional healing into health systems, and humanitarian emergencies. Students in this course will develop an awareness of the political, socioeconomic, ecological, & cultural complexity of health problems in “developing” nations. Students will also learn about anthropological involvement in the field including: applied medical anthropology (theoretical & methodological approaches taken by medical anthropologists working in international health settings); critical medical anthropology (theoretical approaches in medical anthropology emphasizing the historical, ecological, & political-economic context of health and illness); and anthropological critiques of global health development (critical analyses of the notion of health development & reflections on the possibility of developing effective interventions for tackling global health problems).
Course Director (Fall 2024): M. MacDonald – maggie@yorku.ca