Global Health in Times of Violence
Edited by Barbara Rylko-Bauer, Linda Whiteford, and Paul Farmer
What are the prospects for human health in a world threatened by disease and violence? Since World War II, at least 160 wars have erupted around the globe. Over 24 million people have died in these conflicts, and millions more suffered illness and injury. In this volume, leading scholars and practitioners examine the impact of structural, military, and communal violence on health, psychosocial well-being, and health care delivery. By investigating the fields of violence that define our modern world, the authors are able to provide alternative global health paradigms that can be used to develop more effective policies and programs.
This volume springs from an ongoing collaboration between the School for Advanced Research and the Society for Applied Anthropology intended to result in visible activities with lasting effects on the discipline of anthropology and the sciences. The Dobkin Family Foundation generously sponsored the SAR seminar where the project began.
2009. 304 pp., 19 figures, map, notes, references, index, 6 x 9
Contributors: Philippe Bourgois, Paul Farmer, Didier Fassin, H. K. Heggenhougen, Carolyn Nordstrom, James Quesada, Barbara Rylko-Bauer, Merrill Singer, Linda M. Whiteford
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—Tom Leatherman, University of South Carolina
“The theoretical discussions and extensive integration with anthropological studies of different kinds of violence in various settings displayed in each chapter make this an ideal choice for graduate courses. Underemphasized in the prologue and epilogue is the theme of hope and health, of resilience in the face of violence both episodic and chronic. Yet this volume is filled with accounts of resilience and resourcefulness.”
—Jean N. Scandlyn, University of Colorado, Denver, Medical Anthropology Quarterly
“The majority of the authors devote a portion of their chapter to a discussion of what can be done to address structural violence and its impact on health…. The editors believe in the need to witness, advocate, [and] expose in the hopes of making even a small difference in perspectives, policies, and ultimately, peoples’ health in these times of global violence. This spirit…as presented by some of the leading anthropologists researching health and violence, make this volume a significant contribution to the ever-growing literature on violence studies.”
—Heidi Bauer-Clapp, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Landscapes of Violence (online journal), vol., no. 1, 10/1/2010
“Global Health in Times of Violence is a fantastic book that belongs on the syllabus of every medical anthropology and global health course, particularly those focusing on the social determinants of health …”
—Rachel Irwin, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
“This timely volume examines violence as a cause of disease, social suffering and poor health care…. The volume hones in on the globally interconnected forms of structural violence…making visible how it disproportionately affects the health and well-being of marginalised people worldwide…. Overall, this volume brings the issues of violence and global health into a much-needed focus and should be read by all scholars whose work examines the social factors of health, disease and health policy.”
—Saida Hodžic, Cornell University, Global Public Health: An International Journal for Research, Policy and Practice, 6:6
- Prologue: Coming to Terms with Global Violence and Health
Barbara Rylko-Bauer, Linda Whiteford, and Paul Farmer - Recognizing Invisible Violence: A Thirty-Year Ethnographic Retrospective
Philippe Bourgois - “Landmine Boy” and the Tomorrow of Violence
Paul Farmer - Fault Lines
Carolyn Nordstrom - Failure to Protect, Failure to Provide: Refugee Reproductive Rights
Linda Whiteford - A Violence of History: Accounting for AIDS in Post-apartheid South Africa
Didier Fassin - Desperate Measures: A Syndemic Approach to the Anthropology of Health in a Violent City
Merrill Singer - The Vicissitudes of Structural Violence: Nicaragua at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century
James Quesada - Planting “Seeds of Health” in the Fields of Structural Violence: The Life and Death of Francisco Curruchiche
H. K. Heggenhougen - Medicine in the Political Economy of Brutality: Reflections from the Holocaust and Beyond
Barbara Rylko-Bauer - Epilogue: Global Health in Times of Violence—Finding Hope
Linda Whiteford, Barbara Rylko-Bauer, and Paul Farmer