ANTHROP 4LL3 - Critical Global Health

3 unit(s)

Global health constitutes a diversity of actors, institutions, and projects that mobilize immense resources, interventions, and technologies to address complex health issues across the globe. This seminar exposes students to the theories, methodologies, and approaches adopted by anthropologists and others who critically examine how global health reconfigures local practices, politics, and concepts of care, health, and the body. Drawing on case studies from across the globe and using an interdisciplinary lens, the seminar analyzes initiatives, projects, and interventions carried out to improve health in the past and present. We will critically examine topics including: histories of global health, social,
cultural, and political aspects of health, health governance, measuring and quantifying health, global health technologies, cultures and ethics of global health research, health and human rights, and global health’s development paradigms. Students will come to appreciate the value of anthropologically informed perspectives and methods for understanding the social, cultural, economic, and political complexities of improving health.
Seminar (three hours); one term
Prerequisite(s): Registration in Level IV Honours Anthropology or permission of the instructor
Antirequisite(s): Not open to students with credit in ANTHROP 4B03, if the topic was ‘Critical Global Health’