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CS92PROD
Critical Global Health

ANTH 316
Fall 2016
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: SISP 318
Course Cluster: African Studies, African Studies Minor

What does it mean to approach global health as not an applied science but an ethnographic object? This course will explore this question by bringing critical, social science perspectives to bear on global health issues and interventions. It covers three areas of scholarship. First, we will examine the processes by which social inequalities produce patterns of health and disease in globalizing contexts. This will be followed by an interrogation of the term "global health," in which we will trace its emergence as a discourse and enterprise and unpack its contested meanings. While some view global health as a clinical practice, others conceptualize it as a business, security concern, charitable duty, or human right; yet another camp probes the term's ideological construction. We will consider how such vantage points are underpinned by cultural assumptions and ethical agendas that, in turn, can determine how, and to whom, care is delivered. As a third area of inquiry, we will investigate the implications and unintended effects of doing global health by probing such questions as, When are good intentions not good enough? How useful is biomedicine for alleviating locally-defined problems? Under what conditions does global health exacerbate the social inequalities it seeks to overcome?
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS ANTH
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (ANTH)(CGST-MN)(PHIL-Philosophy)(PHIL-Social Jus)
Past Enrollment Probability: Less than 50%

Last Updated on MAR-28-2024
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