Anthropology’s Contribution to Public Health Policy development

Many people in the fields of medicine and public health do not understand the potential role that anthropology could play in the development of public health policy. The intention of this article is to provide readers with an understanding of the unique perspective that medical anthropology could contribute to informing public health policy decisions. Socio-cultural anthropology has undergone significant theoretical and pragmatic changes over the past half-century. As a discipline, anthropology has been criticized for its role in imperial conquest. During colonial times, anthropologists often accompanied colonial explorers and military in order to facilitate their work, this is often referred to as 'the handmaiden era' in the history of anthropology's history. It is said that in this role, anthropologists gained the trust of natives using their linguistic proficiency and cultural awareness in order to assist the colonial state in the implementation of policies that ultimately led to further oppression and disempowerment (Pels and Salemind). Such critiques, among others, have led to a significant redirection of anthropological thought and theory (Lewis). Social and cultural anthropology have turned towards a more critical, reflexive and holistic approach since that time. This 'reconstruction' of anthropology has resulted in an increase in criticism of those structures that had previously been assumed as 'right' and inherently 'good'. Scheper-Hughes writes about how social scientists have typically been blind to the unequal power relationships that have been harmful to informants. She calls for anthropologists to take a critical stance against such structural and institutional violence ("Coming to Our Senses"). Holism has also become an important hallmark of modern ethnography. Even the most basic concept of classic anthropology ― culture ― has been rethought: "the modern view of culture is to stress the importance of always seeing it within its particular context... 'culture' cannot ― and should never be ― considered in a vacuum" (Helman 4,7). These fundamental changes in the broad discipline of socio-cultural anthropology have manifested themselves in each of its related sub-disciplines. This paper will examine these changes in the subdiscipline of medical anthropology, and particularly how these changes allow anthropology to make a contribution to public health policy development.