Interactional Psychology: Some Implications for Psychological Anthropology

Recent developments in psychology are bringing about a rapprochement between behaviorists, trait psychologists, and psychodynamically oriented theorists. The incipient perspective, which has been labeled "interactional psychology," focuses on persons-in-situations and raises some penetrating questions for psychological anthropology. Attempts by interactionists to reconcile traditional concepts of "personality" with evidence demonstrating the power of situations to pattern behavior are discussed. It is proposed that the interactionist framework fits well with recent trends in anthropology that emphasize the contextualization of behavior and an interest in intracultural diversity, [psychological anthropology, personality, situation, ecology of behavior]     

Exploring Medical Anthropology, Medical Anthropology and the World System: A Critical Perspective and Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology

Exploring Medical Anthropology. Donald Joralemon. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999. xiv+ 158pp.
Medical Anthropology and the World System:. Critical Perspective. Hans A. Baer. Merrill Singer. and Ida Susser. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 1997. + 276 pp.
Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. Peter J. Brown. ed. Mountain View, CA. Mayfield, 1998. xii. 451 pp.     

Pulotu: Database of Austronesian Supernatural Beliefs and Practices

Scholars have debated naturalistic theories of religion for thousands of years, but only recently have scientists begun to test predictions empirically. Existing databases contain few variables on religion, and are subject to Galton’s Problem because they do not sufficiently account for the non-independence of cultures or systematically differentiate the traditional states of cultures from their contemporary states. Here we present Pulotu: the first quantitative cross-cultural database purpose-built to test evolutionary hypotheses of supernatural beliefs and practices. The Pulotu database documents the remarkable diversity of the Austronesian family of cultures, which originated in Taiwan, spread west to Madagascar and east to Easter Island–a region covering over half the world’s longitude. The focus of Austronesian beliefs range from localised ancestral spirits to powerful creator gods. A wide range of practices also exist, such as headhunting, elaborate tattooing, and the construction of impressive monuments. Pulotu is freely available, currently contains 116 cultures, and has 80 variables describing supernatural beliefs and practices, as well as social and physical environments. One major advantage of Pulotu is that it has separate sections on the traditional states of cultures, the post-contact history of cultures, and the contemporary states of cultures. A second major advantage is that cultures are linked to a language-based family tree, enabling the use phylogenetic methods, which can be used to address Galton’s Problem by accounting for common ancestry, to infer deep prehistory, and to model patterns of trait evolution over time. We illustrate the power of phylogenetic methods by performing an ancestral state reconstruction on the Pulotu variable “headhunting", finding evidence that headhunting was practiced in proto-Austronesian culture. Quantitative cross-cultural databases explicitly linking cultures to a phylogeny have the potential to revolutionise the field of comparative religious studies in the same way that genetic databases have revolutionised the field of evolutionary biology.     

2009 Society for Medical Anthropology Conference: Changing Anthropology,Changing Society

Fifty years after the founding of the field of medical anthropology, the Society for Medical Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association held its first independent meeting on September 24-27, 2009, at Yale University.Fifty years after the founding of the field of medical anthropology, the Society for Medical Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association held its first independent meeting on September 24-27, 2009, at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The conference, Medical Anthropology at the Intersections, drew an international audience of more than 1,000 scholars.In her opening remarks, program Chair Marcia Inhorn noted that medical anthropology has been interdisciplinary since its inception. This assertion was supported at a roundtable discussion, Founding Medical Anthropology and the Society for Medical Anthropology, which featured four of the field’s founders.Asked to identify the factors that led to the development of medical anthropology, the panelists emphasized the role of changes in the practice and landscape of medicine in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the United States. According to Hazel Weidman, who helped spearhead the Society for Medical Anthropology, medical personnel sought social scientists’ guidance in the new clinical environments created by the increasing involvement of U.S. physicians in global development work and by the community-oriented approach to mental health encouraged by the Community Mental Health Act of 1963. The novel inclusion of lifestyle as a determinant of health at this time also played a role, according to Clifford Barnett. Norman Scotch, author of a 1963 review that had helped define medical anthropology as a field, noted that physicians at the time were very interested in the possible applications of the social sciences to medicine [1,2]. Joan Ablon recalled that this emphasis on application led some academic anthropologists to dismiss the medical anthropologist as a “handmaiden to the doctors.” Despite such resistance, interest in medical anthropology as a sub-field was clearly growing among anthropologists. When Weidman helped organize the first gathering of medical anthropologists at an anthropology conference in 1967, attendance was twice what was expected. Panel organizer Alan Harwood noted that the Society for Medical Anthropology transformed its newsletter into a professional journal, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, in 1983. According to Inhorn, the society has 1,300 members today.For the panelists, medical anthropology’s potential for application makes it a compelling scholarly pursuit. As Barnett stated in explaining his decision to work in anthropology: “If you know how a society works, you can change it.”     

2009 Society for Medical Anthropology Conference: Reflections on the Future of Anthropology

In his plenary session entitled Five Questions on the Future, Harvard anthropologist Arthur Kleinman capitalized on the 2009 Society for Medical Anthropology Conference’s theme of Medical Anthropology at the Intersections to speculate on the future of the discipline.As he reflects on the field of anthropology, which had lacked theory, ethnography, and strong ties to public health and medicine, Harvard anthropologist Arthur Kleinman celebrates the accomplishments made by his contemporaries by saying, “My generation has made medical anthropology what it is today.” However, he is now looking to the future of the discipline, saying it must re-examine itself as a field.During the 2009 Society for Medical Anthropology Conference at Yale University, Kleinman capitalized on the theme of Medical Anthropology at the Intersections in his plenary session entitled Five Questions on the Future. Casting the conference itself as a kind of intersection, Kleinman not only lauded its size and diversity, but asserted that it marked a pivotal moment in which medical anthropology must re-evaluate its central questions.     

金线莲若干栽培技术研究

从金线莲生长所要求的生态环境、营养基质、光照强度、种植时期、种植密度及收获期等方面,对其人工栽培技术进行了探讨,提出一些具体的栽培措施,并对存在的若干问题进行了讨论。     

Social Pathways for Ebola Virus Disease in Rural Sierra Leone,and Some Implications for Containment

The current outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease in Upper West Africa is the largest ever recorded. Molecular evidence suggests spread has been almost exclusively through human-to-human contact. Social factors are thus clearly important to understand the epidemic and ways in which it might be stopped, but these factors have so far been little analyzed. The present paper focuses on Sierra Leone, and provides cross sectional data on the least understood part of the epidemic—the largely undocumented spread of Ebola in rural areas. Various forms of social networking in rural communities and their relevance for understanding pathways of transmission are described. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between marriage, funerals and land tenure. Funerals are known to be a high-risk factor for infection. It is suggested that more than a shift in awareness of risks will be needed to change local patterns of behavior, especially in regard to funerals, since these are central to the consolidation of community ties. A concluding discussion relates the information presented to plans for halting the disease. Local consultation and access are seen as major challenges to be addressed.     

Traditional Health Beliefs and Practices Among Lower Class Black Americans

The medical belief system of lower class black Americans reflects their social, political and economic marginality in the larger society. A moderate life-style is regarded as the basis for good health with special emphasis on protecting one''s body from cold, keeping it clean inside and out and maintaining a proper diet. Illnesses and other life events are classified as “natural” or “unnatural.” Natural illnesses result from the effects of cold, dirt and improper diet on the body causing changes in the blood. A number of beliefs about blood and its functions have important clinical implications for the treatment of hypertension and venereal disease and for family planning. Natural illnesses also result from divine punishment and serve as an instrument of social control. Unnatural illnesses are the result of witchcraft and reflect conflict in the social network. It is believed that physicians do not understand and cannot effectively treat such illnesses, but a variety of traditional healers offer help to the victims. Physicians must elicit such beliefs if they are to interact effectively and sensitively with black patients. Social change is required, however, to eliminate the feelings of powerlessness at the root of many of the health problems of poor black Americans.     

On the Medicalization of Medical Anthropology

The following address was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Medical Anthropology (SMA), November 21,1997, Washington, DC, by outgoing SMA president Carole Browner. It has been edited slightly for publication.