Beyond the Linguistic/Medical Anthropology Divide: Retooling Anthropology to Face COVID-19.

Differing analytics and ethnographic practices impede conversations between linguistic and medical anthropologists. Here I juxtapose articles in this special issue that use diverse ethnographic sites to rethink anthropological concepts of health, disease, care, the body, language, and communication in the light of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. I track how anthropologists and their interlocutors envision relations between ideologies, embedded modeling (or metacommunication), and ordinary pragmatics, particularly by projecting their actual or ideal consonance versus exploring how sounds, bodies, technologies, and practices emerge from disjunctures. Comparing H1N1 in 2009 and COVID-19 prompts reflection on why anthropologists must transcend this foundational divide to tackle pandemic complexities.

Entre quimioterapias, herbolaria y espiritualidades: estudio antropológico sobre el pluralismo terapéutico en adultos con cáncer en México / Between chemotherapies, herbalism and spiritualities: anthropological study of therapeutic pluralism in adults with cancer in Mexico

RESUMEN Objetivos Analizar las características del pluralismo terapéutico en torno al cáncer de adultos, atendidos en un hospital de cancerología, a partir de sus trayectorias de salud/enfermedad/atención-desatención. Métodos Estudio analítico-explicativo, etnográfico, transversal-aplicado y de carácter cualitativo. Se realizaron registros etnográficos, observación participante y entrevistas semiestructuradas. Para el artículo se tomaron los datos proporcionados por diez personas participantes con cáncer, atendidas en el Centro Estatal de Cancerología de Veracruz. La identificación de participantes se hará mediante seudónimos, para preservar la privacidad de datos personales. Los instrumentos de trabajo estuvieron conformados por guías de observación, guías de entrevistas semiestructuradas y expedientes clínicos del hospital mencionado. Resultados Se muestran dos resultados principales: 1) caracterización de la diversidad de terapias de acuerdo con las referencias de los participantes, y lo que utilizaron durante toda su trayectoria biográfica en torno a procesos salud/enfermedad/ atención-desatención; 2) identificación de los aspectos socioculturales que intervienen en estos procesos complejos de pluralidad terapéutica, estrechamente relacionados con la aparición del cáncer. Conclusión Los aspectos socioculturales están entretejidos con la pluralidad terapéutica emergente en los procesos complejos de la enfermedad del cáncer. La implicación de dichos factores en los procesos salud/enfermedad/atención-desatención al cáncer se manifiestan incluso antes de los primeros síntomas, es decir, en las acciones cotidianas del autocuidado y acciones de atención preventiva. El mestizaje terapéutico registrado da cuenta de los efectos de la globalización, característica de las sociedades capitalistas, en la que el pluralismo de terapias deviene en un fenómeno óptimo de comercialización y consumo.(AU)

ABSTRACT Objectives To analyze the characteristics of therapeutic pluralism in adult patients at a hospital Cancer Center, based on their health/illness/care-neglect trajectories. Methods Analytical-explanatory, ethnographic, transversal-applied qualitative study. Data was provided by ten participants with cancer treated at the Veracruz State Cancer Center. Ethnographic records, participant observation and semi-structured interviews were carried out using observational guides, semi-structured interview guides and hospital clinical records. Participants were identified with pseudonyms for privacy and confidentiality. Results Two main results were: 1) characterization of the diversity of therapies utilized by participants throughout their biographical trajectory related to their health/disease/care-neglect processes; 2) identification of the cultural characteristics involved in these complex processes of therapeutic plurality, closely related to the appearance of cancer. Conclusion Sociocultural aspects are interwoven with emerging therapeutic pluralities in the complex disease processes in cancer. The implications of these factors in the health/disease/care-neglect processes in cancer are manifest even before the first symptoms, in daily actions of self-care and preventive care. The mixing of therapies is an effect of the globalization characteristic of capitalist societies, in which therapeutic pluralism becomes an optimal phenomenon for commercialization and consumption.(AU)

Contested legitimacy for anthropologists involved in medical humanitarian action: experiences from the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic.

The growing involvement of anthropologists in medical humanitarian response efforts has laid bare the moral and ethical consequences that emerge from humanitarian action. Anthropologists are well placed to examine the social, political, cultural and economic dimensions that influence the spread of diseases, and the ways in which to respond to epidemics. Anthropologists are also, with care, able to turn a critical lens on medical humanitarian response. However, there remains some resistance to involving anthropologists in response activities in the field. Drawing on interviews with anthropologists and humanitarian workers involved in the 2014-2016 West African Ebola epidemic, this paper reveals the complex roles taken on by anthropologists in the field and reveals how anthropologists faced questions of legitimacy vis-à-vis communities and responders in their roles in response activities, which focused on acting as 'firefighters' and 'cultural brokers' as well as legitimacy as academic researchers. Whilst these anthropologists were able to conduct research alongside these activities, or draw on anthropological knowledge to inform response activities, questions also arose about the legitimacy of these roles for anthropological academia. We conclude that the process of gaining legitimacy from all these different constituencies is particular to anthropologists and reveals the role of 'giving voice' to communities alongside critiquing medical humanitarianism. Whilst these anthropologists have strengthened the argument for the involvement of anthropologists in epidemic response this anthropological engagement with medical humanitarianism has revealed theoretical considerations more broadly for the discipline, as highlighted through engagement in other fields, especially in human rights and global health.

[Medical anthropology in Latin America, 1990-2015: A strictly provisional review]. / Antropología médica en América Latina 1990-2015: Una revisión estrictamente provisional.

The article presents a provisional examination of the production of Latin American medical anthropology, especially from Mexico, and to a lesser degree Brazil, from 1990 to 2015, in an attempt to highlight the discipline's principal contributions, orientations and objectives, but also to pose critiques and doubts, especially with respect to the omission of the study of serious collective health problems and processes. The article attempts to put into evidence the importance of the discipline not only for anthropology, but also for biomedicine, suggesting the need for complementation beyond the differences and incompatibilities that exist regarding, for example, the use of qualitative techniques, and interventions -or lack of interventions- regarding the customs of the different social actors with respect to health/disease/care-prevention processes.

Se presenta una aproximación provisional sobre lo producido por la antropología médica en América Latina, especialmente, en México y, en menor medida, en Brasil, entre 1990 y 2015, tratando de señalar sus principales aportes, orientaciones y objetivos, pero también planteando críticas y algunas dudas referidas, especialmente, a la omisión del estudio de graves procesos y problemas de salud colectiva. En el artículo se trata de poner en evidencia la importancia de esta disciplina no solo para la antropología, sino también para la biomedicina, planteando la necesidad de complementación, más allá de las diferencias e incompatibilidades que existen respecto, por ejemplo, del uso de las técnicas cualitativas o de las intervenciones y no intervenciones sobre los "usos y costumbres" de los diferentes actores sociales referidos a los procesos de salud/enfermedad/atención-prevención.

Antropología médica en América Latina 1990-2015: Una revisión estrictamente provisional / Medical anthropology in Latin America, 1990-2015: A strictly provisional review

RESUMEN Se presenta una aproximación provisional sobre lo producido por la antropología médica en América Latina, especialmente, en México y, en menor medida, en Brasil, entre 1990 y 2015, tratando de señalar sus principales aportes, orientaciones y objetivos, pero también planteando críticas y algunas dudas referidas, especialmente, a la omisión del estudio de graves procesos y problemas de salud colectiva. En el artículo se trata de poner en evidencia la importancia de esta disciplina no solo para la antropología, sino también para la biomedicina, planteando la necesidad de complementación, más allá de las diferencias e incompatibilidades que existen respecto, por ejemplo, del uso de las técnicas cualitativas o de las intervenciones y no intervenciones sobre los "usos y costumbres" de los diferentes actores sociales referidos a los procesos de salud/enfermedad/atención-prevención.

ABSTRACT The article presents a provisional examination of the production of Latin American medical anthropology, especially from Mexico, and to a lesser degree Brazil, from 1990 to 2015, in an attempt to highlight the discipline's principal contributions, orientations and objectives, but also to pose critiques and doubts, especially with respect to the omission of the study of serious collective health problems and processes. The article attempts to put into evidence the importance of the discipline not only for anthropology, but also for biomedicine, suggesting the need for complementation beyond the differences and incompatibilities that exist regarding, for example, the use of qualitative techniques, and interventions -or lack of interventions- regarding the customs of the different social actors with respect to health/disease/care-prevention processes.

Anthropologists in Global Health Experiments.

Can global health experiments be part of more flexible systems of knowledge generation, where different bodies of knowledge come together to provide understanding not only of the outcomes of new interventions but also of the mechanisms through which they affect people's well-being and health? Building past work in which they tried to transform how global health experiments are carried out and inspired by the articles in this special issue, the authors of this commentary argue that strategic collaboration is needed to break the hegemony of randomized controlled trials in designing global health technologies. More open-ended experiments are possible if anthropologists team up with innovative researchers in biomedicine to develop new conceptual models and to adopt novel observational techniques and 'smart' trials that incorporate ethnography to unravel complex interactions between local biologies, attributes of health systems, social infrastructures, and users' everyday lives.

Anthropology of health in Brazil: a border discourse.

This article traces the development of anthropological research on health in Brazil in light of discussions on modernity/coloniality and world anthropologies. Originating in the 1970s, stimulated by external and internal pressures for scientific production and along with the expansion of graduate programs, a network of anthropologists has consolidated and multiplied in Brazil. We describe the development of research groups, meetings, and publications in order to characterize Brazilian anthropology of health as a research program that distinguishes itself from North Atlantic medical anthropology. We examine the visibility and circulation of references in academic publications to explore the participation of Brazilians in the global discourse and, more specifically, in the North-South dialogue. From a comparative perspective, we argue that anthropological investigations of health reflect a perspective and ethos distinctive to Brazil and its historical and political processes.