Anthropology of medicine: a theoretical review

Abstract

An analysis was made of the most representative literature on both curing practices of cure and health and illness representations, taking England, the United State of America and France as references. With representatives of the main schools of anthropological thought (such as functionalism. functional-structuralism, structuralism, labelling theory, symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology and cultural criticism), the history of Anthropology of Medicine runs into the history of Anthropology itself. Besides analysing the contribution these various schools have made to this area of study, the current deadlock which is arising within, it is also indicated by this article. It is considered that the absence of a theory capable of explaining how small scale social process (which are appropriate to anthropological methodology) are subordinated to the large-scale social processes which are recurrent in capitalist society is the main reason for this deadlock.