Managing Uncertainty: Ethnographic Studies of Illness, Risk and the Struggles for Control (Critical Anthropology) (Volume 2)

Jenkins, R. et al (eds)

ISBN 10: 8772899638 / ISBN 13: 9788772899633

Published by Museum Tusculanum Press, 2005

About this Item

Volume 2. This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has soft covers. In good all round condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,650grams, ISBN:9788772899633.

Seller Inventory # 9421147

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Managing Uncertainty: Ethnographic Studies of Illness, Risk and the Struggles for Control (Critical Anthropology) (Volume 2)
• Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 8772899638
• ISBN 13: 9788772899633
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Good
• Weight: 650 grams
• Seller catalogs:
  • Anthropology

About this title

Synopsis

The overall focus of this book is the ways humans deal with life conditions, with destiny, uncertainty and misfortune – how we try to control the risks of living through medicines, technologies and magic.

When dealing with questions of health and illness rational solutions and meaningful explanations may be hard to find, and treatment efforts are often guided just as much by hope as by rational choice. Evaluating the risks of illness is just one of a number of ways in which human beings attempt to exert some sense of control over their lives. New methods of testing for ills and new developments in, for example, genetic screening and in vitro fertilisation combined with the growing demands of well-informed patients seem to have turned concern from the actual problems of specific diseases toward controlling life and the risks of living in general. The chapters of this book reflect a common effort to transgress the limits of the medical by drawing on a fundamental concern with the logic of social and cultural practice. The book represents a de-medicalization of medical anthropology and a return to some of the classic themes in anthropology but with a different approach, emphasizing subjectivity, intentionality and agency.

About the Author

Vibeke Steffen is associate professor in the department of anthropology at the University of Copenhagen.