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Illness and Healing
Undergraduate | MAQ-ANTX202 | 2019
Course information for 2019 intake
Examine healing practices and attitudes to illness from across the globe. Step into the world of biomedicine and shamanism. Think about attitudes to mental health and madness. Scan the role of imaging technologies in modern medicine.
- Study method
- 100% online
- Assessments
- 100% online
- Entry requirements
- No ATAR needed,
- No prior study
- Duration
- -
HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP available
Illness and Healing
About this subject
At the completion of this subject students will be able to:
- understand medical anthropology and develop an understanding of cross beliefs relating to illness and healing
- gain familiarity with ethnographic approaches to illness and healing
- appreciate the ways in which class, gender and ethnicity shape medical systems and outcomes
- critically examine Western biomedicine
- apply and adapt anthropological knowledge to real work issues
- gain and/or improve research skills
- acquire and express information and arguments in a scholarly manner and with appropriate citation
- competently use on-line resources
- effectively and efficiently organise and manage goals.
- Defining illness and disease, the normal and the abnormal
- Placebos and cultural meaning
- Ethics and drug trials
- Illness narratives
- Biomedicine and shamanism
- The culture of biomedicine
- Health and indigenous Australia
- Cross-cultural perspectives on madness
- Imaging technologies and reproductive health
- Gender and the body: anorexia and menstruation
- Pathologies of power and the organ trade
- Pharmaceuticals and ADHD
This subject was previously known as ANTX202 Culture and Healing.
The subject offers an introduction to medical anthropology and cross cultural beliefs relating to illness and healing. Different notions about disease causality are examined, as well as the way in which disease has social as well as biological origins. Healing practices, including Western biomedicine, are treated as being inevitably predicated on cultural systems of understanding. Specific topics include the abnormal, culture bound syndromes, body techniques, witchcraft, shamanism, placebos and the 'meaning effect', discipline, social suffering, illness narratives, the relationship between illness and social experience, clinical encounters and changing concepts of mental health.
- Essay (40%)
- Non-Invigilated Exam (40%)
- Review (10%)
- Tutorial topics (10%)
For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).
This research-intensive university in north-western Sydney offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. With over 44,000 current students, Macquarie has a strong reputation for welcoming international students and embracing flexible and convenient study options, including its partnership with Open Universities Australia.
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- QS Ranking 2024:
- 10
- Times Higher Education Ranking 2024:
- 10
Entry requirements
No entry requirements
Equivalent subjects
You should not enrol in this subject if you have successfully completed any of the following subject(s) because they are considered academically equivalent:
MAQ-ANT202 (Not currently available)
Study load
- 0.125 EFTSL
- This is in the range of 10 to 12 hours of study each week.
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