Merrill Singer & Pamela I. Erickson 
A Companion to Medical Anthropology [PDF ebook] 

Synopsis of Contents viii
List of Figures xix
List of Tables xx
Notes on Contributors xxi
Acknowledgments — Personal xxxii
Acknowledgments — Sources xxxiii
Introduction 1
Part I Theories, Applications, and Methods 7
1 Medical Anthropology in Disciplinary Context: Definitional
Struggles and Key Debates (or Answering the Cri Du Coeur) 9
Elisa J. Sobo
2 Critical Biocultural Approaches in Medical Anthropology
29
Tom Leatherman and Alan H. Goodman
3 Applied Medical Anthropology: Praxis, Pragmatics, Politics,
and Promises 49
Robert T. Trotter, II
4 Research Design and Methods in Medical Anthropology 69
Clarence C. Gravlee
5 Medical Anthropology and Public Policy 93
Merrill Eisenberg
Part II Contexts and Conditions 117
6 Culture and the Stress Process 119
William W. Dressler
7 Global Health 135
Craig R. Janes and Kitty K. Corbett
8 Syndemics in Global Health 159
Merrill Singer, D. Ann Herring, Judith Littleton, and Melanie
Rock
9 The Ecology of Disease and Health 181
Patricia K. Townsend
10 The Medical Anthropology of Water 197
Linda M. Whiteford and Cecilia Vindrola Padros
11 Political Violence, War and Medical Anthropology 219
Barbara Rylko-Bauer and Merrill Singer
Part III Health and Behavior 251
12 Humans in a World of Microbes: The Anthropology of Infectious
Disease 253
Peter J. Brown, George J. Armelagos, and Kenneth C. Maes
13 Sexuality, Medical Anthropology, and Public Health 271
Pamela I. Erickson
14 Situating Birth in the Anthropology of Reproduction 289
Carolyn Sargent and Lauren Gulbas
15 Nutrition and Health 305
David A. Himmelgreen, Nancy Romero Daza and Charlotte A.
Noble
16 Anthropologies of Cancer and Risk, Uncertainty and Disruption
323
Lenore Manderson
17 Generation RX: Anthropological Research on Pharmaceutical
Enhancement, Lifestyle Regulation, Self-Medication and Recreational
Drug Use 339
Gilbert Quintero and Mark Nichter
18 Anthropology and the Study of Illicit Drug Use 357
J. Bryan Page
Part IV Healthwork: Care, Treatment, and Communication
379
19 Ethnomedicine 381
Marsha B. Quinlan
20 Medical Pluralism: An Evolving and Contested Concept in
Medical Anthropology 405
Hans A. Baer
21 Biotechnologies of Care 425
Julie Park and Ruth Fitzgerald
22 Social Interaction and Technology: Cultural Competency and
the Universality of Good Manners 443
Kathryn Coe, Gail Barker, and Craig Palmer
23 Biocommunicability 459
Charles L. Briggs
24 Anthropology at the End of Life 477
Ron Barrett
Part V The Road Ahead 491
25 Operationalizing a Right to Health: Theorizing a National
Health System as a ‘Commons’ 493
Sandy Smith-Nonini and Beverly Bell
26 As the Future Explodes into the Present: Emergent Issues and
the Tomorrow of Medical Anthropology 515
Merrill Singer and Pamela I. Erickson
Index 533

Merrill Singer is Professor at the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Community Medicine, University of Connecticut; and Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Health, Intervention and Prevention.
Pamela I. Erickson is Professor at the Department of Anthropology and Department of Community Medicine, University of Connecticut.