Illness and Healing

• • A week-by-week guide to the topics you will explore in this subject will be provided in your study materials.

Equivalent subjects

You cannot enrol in this subject if you have successfully completed any of the following subject(s) because they are considered academically equivalent:

• MAQ-ANT202
• MAQ-ANTX202-Illness and Healing

Others

NCCW (pre-2020 units): ANT202, ANTH202, ANTH274, ANTX202 NCCW (2020 and onwards): ANTH2002 Illness and Healing

Special requirements

• OtherDetails -

  Students who have an Academic Standing of Suspension or Exclusion under Macquarie University's Academic Progression Policy are not permitted to enrol in OUA units offered by Macquarie University. Students with an Academic Standing of Suspension or Exclusion who have enrolled in units through OUA will be withdrawn.

This unit offers an introduction to medical anthropology and cross-cultural beliefs relating to illness and healing. We will examine health and illness from a multilevel perspective that explores the evolution of human disease, the role of culture in shaping epidemiology, varying cultural notions of disease causality, the individual experience of illness, and the socio-political factors that condition our experience and management of negatively-valued states of health. Throughout, the unit emphasizes that good health - and conversely ill health - is never simply a "fact" about the body. Disease and illness have social and biological origins, which means our understanding of this central fact of human life must incorporate not only biological factors, but also the broader cultural frameworks that transform mere disease into the culturally-specific experience of illness. All enrolment queries should be directed to Open Universities Australia (OUA): see www.open.edu.au

• Long Essay (40%)
• Short esssay (30%)
• Tutoial Participation (30%)