6th Ethnographies of Science & Technology Workshop
第六回「科学技術の民族誌研究会」
At the Crossroads of Medical and Cultural Anthropology
– Culture, Medicine, Comparison –
文化と医療研究からみた現代人類学における『比較』の方法と実践
Date and Time: August 29, 2012, 15:00~18:00
Venue: G-sec Lab, 6F, East Building, Mita Campus, Keio University
Access: http://www.keio.ac.jp/access.html
Open to public. Admission Free. No registration is required.
This event will be held in English; summary in Japanese is provided after each talk.
For further details contact: Gergely Mohacsi (mohacska@z3.keio.jp)
PROGRAM
15:00 Introductory Remarks
Gergely Mohacsi (CARLS, Keio University)
15:15 Beyond the Horizon: An Inquiry into the Outermost Reaches of the
Anthropological Gaze and the Comparative Method
Allan Young (McGill University)
16:15 (Coffee Break)
16:30 Roundtable Discussion
Coordinator: Gergely Mohácsi (Keio University)
Participants:
Allan Young (McGill University)
Pino Schirippa (University of Rome)
Kitanaka Junko (Keio University)
Yamazaki Goro (Osaka University)
Hamada Akinori (JSPS)
17:30 General Discussion
Coordinator: Miyasaka Keizo (Keio University)
MOTION & ABSTRACT
The suggested motion for the roundtable discussion is:
Medical anthropology illuminates the recursive relationship between the anthropological tool of comparison and human differences.
Physicians and other medical professionals—not to mention patients—are only very rarely interested in the debates of medical anthropologists. One reason for this is that medical anthropology will never be able to cure people; one field, however, where medical anthropologists can contribute is (cultural) anthropology. Comparison is one issue/method where such a contribution is possible. It used to be the ultimate method in anthropology, but for a long time it is rather a target of criticism than anything else. Medical anthropologists, however, can provide many examples of how people—patients, physicians, epidemiologists, brain scientists, etc.—actually do comparisons all the time. We should rethink comparison as both a method and a daily practice (in medicine, and else) that links ethnography and anthropology. Whatever we think about its correctness or validity, comparison is one way people do their cultures, their religions, their sciences, their ethnicities, their gender, etc. It is therefore a very good example how anthropologists do exactly what their informants do—but it is very rarely admitted (despite the many other examples for such a recursive relationship in anthropology. The argument here is that admitting this relationship between the method and subject of ethnography may lead to new innovations in anthropological theory and practice, and that medical anthropology has a pivotal role there.