Body and Illness across diferent áreas of knowledge

• Main Author: Cynthia Sarti
• Format: Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Ciências Sociais (ANPOCS) 2010-01-01
• Series: Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais
• Subjects: Corps; Santé et maladie; Anthropologie de la santé; Biomédecine
• Online Access: http://socialsciences.scielo.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0102-69092010000100009&lng=en&tlng=en

This essay discusses the anthropological studies on body and illness from the perspective of the way in which they relate to biological knowledge in the scientific field of health. Anthropological research implies an attitude before this area of knowledge to the point that the way in which one relates to the other becomes an epistemological problem, defining the status of anthropological knowledge in that field marked by the hegemony of bio-medical sciences. From this point of view, we distinguish two perspectives: medical anthropology, subsumed under the logic of bio-medical knowledge, and the anthropology of health, whose approach through the notion of culture gives rise to another epistemological reference, pointing to the anthropological contribution to this field that presupposes, in itself, the distance from the references that support bio-medicine.