ANTH 147 E1: green

Case Studies/Examples

❖ Berry’s ethnographic insights about the cultural logics informing childbirth practices among indigenous Mayan people in Guatemala

Berry’s ethnographic insights about childbirth practices among indigenous Mayan people in Guatemala reveal that decisions around birth are shaped not by ignorance or superstition, but by deep cultural logics, social values, and historical context.
Through her immersive fieldwork, Berry shows that giving birth at home—especially in the husband’s family’s house—is a key way for a woman to be socially accepted and integrated into her new family. This is tied to patrilocality (living with the husband’s family) and the belief that birth is not just a biological event, but a crucial social ritual where kinship roles are formed and affirmed.
Berry also highlights the mistrust indigenous communities feel toward hospitals and medical staff, due to a long history of disrespect, racism, and marginalization—especially during and after Guatemala’s civil war. Rosario’s case tragically illustrates how this mistrust and the importance of fulfilling cultural obligations can conflict with biomedical advice, sometimes with fatal consequences.
Berry’s work shows that to improve maternal health outcomes, public health efforts must understand and respect local cultural values and social dynamics. Ethnography allows us to see that healing and care are not just about medicine, but about maintaining moral order, kinship, and community cohesion.

❖ Evans-Pritchard’s ethnographic insights about witchcraft among the Azande

Evans-Pritchard’s ethnographic insights about witchcraft among the Azande reveal that the Azande use witchcraft as a rational way to explain misfortune in everyday life. While they understand cause and effect at a practical level (e.g., termites cause a granary to collapse), they use witchcraft to explain why something happened at that exact moment to that specific person—adding a layer of meaning to random misfortunes.
Rather than judging these beliefs as true or false, Evans-Pritchard showed that witchcraft serves a social function—helping people make sense of suffering, reinforce moral behavior, and maintain social order.
His work demonstrated that Azande beliefs are logical within their cultural context, and helped establish the anthropological approach of understanding beliefs on their own terms, through participant observation and cultural immersion.

❖ Stacey Pigg’s ethnographic insights about shamanism in Nepal

reveal the tension between traditional healing practices and modern identity. During her research in the 1980s, she found that while shamans were still widely consulted, many Nepalis were hesitant to talk about them openly because they feared being seen as “backward” or uneducated.
Pigg’s key insight is that how people talk about shamanism is shaped by their desire to appear modern, especially in a globalizing world. This shows that beliefs and practices are not just about health—they are also about social status, identity, and how people want to be perceived.
Her work highlights that ethnographic research requires sensitivity to how people position themselves and their culture in relation to outsiders, and it emphasizes the importance of suspending judgment to understand the cultural logic behind people’s choices and beliefs.

❖ Wang’s insights about (non)-disclosure of diagnoses among some Chinese people

Lulu was raised in the US (compared with Chinese extended family) Lulu = believed it was the patient's right to learn about their diagnoses and to make their own decisions regarding treatment (body and mind are separate, emotional and physical health are separate.
Also, values freedom of decision, patients' rights, etc.) Chinese family = believed that Lulu's grandmother should not know, as she would become depressed and anxious (which would cause her to die more quickly) (body and mind intertwined— mind would worsen, cause the body to worsen) Chinese expression: "chongxi" = joy can "wash away misfortune"

❖ Cultural concepts of the human body in US culture and biomedicine

Woman from the Willed body program (They are trying to teach fundamental respect for the human body and for the human beings who are doing the honor and contribution of giving their bodies so others can learn and to create a sense of respect in the process)
In U.S. culture, the body is often seen as a machine—something that can be fixed, optimized, or controlled. → This view emphasizes individual responsibility for health (e.g., through diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices) and aligns with broader American values like independence, productivity, and efficiency.

• In biomedicine, the dominant medical system in the U.S., the body is usually understood in biological terms—as a collection of organs, systems, and functions. Disease is often treated as a physical malfunction to be diagnosed and corrected using technology, pharmaceuticals, or surgery. This biomedical model tends to focus on the body separate from the mind or social context, which can overlook the cultural or emotional dimensions of illness.

❖ Cultural concepts of the human body, health, and healing among Qollahuya Indians in Bolivian Andes

Cultural concepts of the human body, health, and healing among the Qollahuaya Indians in the Bolivian Andes are deeply rooted in a symbolic worldview where the body, community, land, and ancestors are all interconnected.
In Qollahuaya culture, the mountain is seen as a living human body, and the people see themselves as part of that body. The body is a metaphor for the community and land: each ecological zone of the mountain (head, trunk, legs) supports different types of life and production, and together they form a balanced, circulating system—just like the human body must be in balance to stay healthy.
Health and illness are not viewed as isolated physical issues, but as signs of social or spiritual imbalance, especially disharmony with ancestors, community norms, or the mountain itself.
When someone becomes ill, it is seen as a breakdown in relationships—not just within the body, but between people, land, and ancestors. Healing involves rituals that aim to restore these relationships.
Healers (shamans) don’t just treat symptoms—they investigate social and spiritual causes of illness. In the case of Erminia, a young girl who became ill, the true cause was seen as Martin's (her father’s) disrespect for his wife’s ancestor shrine—symbolizing a violation of social and spiritual norms.
Healing rituals focused on repairing relationships, reaffirming kinship, and making offerings to the mountain and ancestors. In sum, the Qollahuaya view the body not as an individual biological system but as deeply embedded in a larger social and cosmic order. Healing means rebalancing that order—physically, socially, and spiritually.

❖ Cultural concepts of the human body, health, and healing in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)

In TCM, the human body is seen as a microcosm of the universe, connected through the flow of qi (life energy). Health is achieved when qi flows smoothly and yin and yang (opposing but complementary forces) are in balance.
Illness is seen as the result of imbalances (like too much heat or moisture) or blockages in the body’s energy pathways (meridians).
Healing focuses on restoring balance and harmony, using techniques like acupuncture, herbal medicine, cupping, and moxibustion.
Diagnosis involves observing the pulse, tongue, and symptoms to understand the underlying causes, not just the surface illness. This reflects a deeply cultural approach where the body, mind, and environment are all interconnected.

❖ Major healing techniques in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)

When diagnosing illness, TCM doctors aim to understand the root cause of suffering by identifying imbalances or blockages in the body's energy flow—such as too much dampness or a deficiency of heat.
key TCM techniques: Acupuncture to unblock qi pathways, allowing energy to flow freely., Moxibustion (burning herbs on the skin) to release qi and add warmth & Herbal remedies prepared as teas to restore balance.

❖ Taylor’s Critique of The Spirit Catches You

FADIMAN says it was the monk culture versus medical science, but TAYOR says no, it was cultural encounters between medical culture as practiced in America and embodied by Neil Ernst and the Lees

• What Janelle Tylor is doing here with this concept of tragedy and hamartia— is saying this is not a story about good guys and bad guys and not a story about the courageous and the wicked, but this a TRAGIC story and as all tragedies are, a person who has good intentions and virtue and wants to do the right thing but fails
• Taylor argues that Dr. Ernst should be portrayed not simply as an individual, but as representative of biomedical culture and some of its virtues and flaws (its blindness to cultural values of its patients) — “culture of no culture” in the sense that medicine often doesn't realize that it functions according to and through cultural ideas and values

❖ Changes in the education of medical students in the US

reflect a shift from a purely scientific and emotionally detached model to one that encourages cultural awareness, emotional reflection, and respect for human dignity.

• These changes aim to humanize medical education, helping future doctors understand both the cultural dimensions of medicine and the emotional impact of their work, rather than training them to be purely clinical and detached.