Introduction to anthropology in global health

The course provides an introduction to medical anthropology exploring the socio-cultural and structural conditions that shape experiences of health, illness and disability. The focus will be placed on reproductive health, with a particular emphasis on pregnancy-, abortion- and birth related experience. Through empirical cases from the politicized field of the gendered reproductive body, the course will investigate how global reproductive health policy is played out, perceived and acted upon in local health systems- and community contexts. The course will analyze the childbearing body as a central site for reproductive governance, where dynamics of power and agency intersect with culturally embedded meaning making processes. Through anthropological perspectives and ethnographic methods, the students will engage with contextual and comparative approaches to enable critical thinking and reflection in global reproductive health.

The course is planned and offered in collaboration with OsloMet

Students will be able to:

Knowledge

• describe central anthropological concepts, theory and methodology in research on health, illness and disability
• identify social- and cultural aspects of adverse reproductive health outcomes
• explain structural conditions and power dynamics that shape reproductive health outcomes and experience
• describe the interaction between global reproductive governance and local experience and practice

Skills

• describe central anthropological concepts, theory and methodology in research on health, illness and disability
• identify social- and cultural aspects of adverse reproductive health outcomes
• explain structural conditions and power dynamics that shape reproductive health outcomes and experience
• describe the interaction between global reproductive governance and local experience and practice

General Competence

• employ central concepts and theory in the analysis of reproductive health calamity
• engage anthropological conceptual and methodological approaches in the design of own research project