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Universal Biology, Local Society? Notes from Anthropology

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The Palgrave Handbook of Biology and Society

Abstract

We outline four perspectives on the body that have emerged from ethnographic research on (bio)medicine. We describe these with particular attention to the way they relate ‘nature’ and ‘culture.’ All four approaches engage the human body through ‘culture’ as meaning or practice. The material body is either implicitly treated as universal or particularized through discourse, experience or practice. Trying to stake out a middle ground between material universality and cultural particularity, we discuss the potential within these approaches for an anthropological engagement with the evolution of human bodies over time. In concluding, we use the case of the entanglement of mental illness and urban environments to underscore four modes of engaging the situated body-in-action through long-term, co-laborative ethnographic research.

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  1. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Patrick Bieler & Jörg Niewöhner

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  1. Patrick Bieler
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  1. Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Maurizio Meloni

  2. School of Management, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    John Cromby

  3. Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Des Fitzgerald

  4. Department of Anthropology, Laval University, Québec, Canada

    Stephanie Lloyd

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Bieler, P., Niewöhner, J. (2018). Universal Biology, Local Society? Notes from Anthropology. In: Meloni, M., Cromby, J., Fitzgerald, D., Lloyd, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Biology and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52879-7_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52879-7_27

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