Overview
Offers a unique anthropological critique of biomedicine in rural Bangladesh
Employs critical and interpretative approaches in anthropology to examine the meaning and nature of biomedicine, addressing how biomedicine has been recognized and accommodated in the local medical system of rural Bangladesh
Demonstrates how biomedicine is localized through an intricate web that includes historical political economy, geography, sociocultural settings, social hierarchy, bureaucracy, accountability, corruption, and a healthcare system characterized by medical pluralism
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
Table of contents (8 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
Reviews
‘Faruk Shah’s evocative text traces some of the myriad ways that power, politics, and culture come to shape the illness experiences of the poor and marginalized in Bangladesh. Tracing the effects of national as well as local political dynamics on Bangladeshi medical practice, it makes a new contribution to studies of biomedicine in South Asia.’ (Susanna Helen Trnka, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland, New Zealand)
‘There are very few examples of anthology of biomedicine from the Non-Western context. Taking Bangladesh as a case Faruk Shah convincingly explores the idea of plurality of biomedicine. This book deserves to be read by anthropologists and global health practitioners alike.’ (Shahaduz Zaman, Medical Anthropologist, University of Sussex, UK)
‘In Biomedicine, Healing and Modernity in Rural Bangladesh, Faruk Shah addresses many core issues in critical medical anthropology. From the ways that medical technologies, scientific truth claims, and clinical practices that are often assumed to possess “universal” applicability become reformulated in local Bangladeshi settings, to the complex choreographies of care, corruption, and class that play out across clinical experiences, this book presents a timely and nuanced portrait of patients and medical practitioners, alike, living within the constraints of health care needs, policy failures, and structural inequalities.’ (Sienna R. Craig, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College, USA)
‘Biomedicine, Healing and Modernity in Rural Bangladesh is unique for its direct assessment of the often horrifying outcomes of the interaction of medicine, corporate greed, poverty and power in South Asia. That Faruk Shah has accomplished a remarkable work of ethnographic scholarship is made clear by the information he has been able accumlate covering all aspects of rural medical practices in Bangladesh. If academia is to have any impact on the realities of human life, we will need more researchers like Faruk Shah.’ (Dr. Gregory D. Booth, Professor of Ethnomusicology, University of Auckland, New Zealand)
‘This ethnography makes a significant contribution to our understanding of biomedical health systems and their impacts on people and health related process in Bangladesh, and by extension to many other similar contexts across the global south.’ (Sita Venkateswar, Associate Professor, School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University, New Zealand)
‘This book proffers a meticulous ethnographic insight into the nature and manifestations of corruption in healthcare system as well as a treatment of gendered aspects of modernity. There has been strikingly limited research on the subject, and the work deserves wide readership.’ (Professor Niaz Ahmed Khan, Department of Development Studies, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Biomedicine, Healing and Modernity in Rural Bangladesh
Authors: Md. Faruk Shah
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9143-0
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-32-9142-3Published: 16 December 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-981-32-9145-4Published: 10 January 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-981-32-9143-0Published: 02 December 2019
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIV, 323
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Medical Anthropology, Medical Sociology, Development and Gender