Health, Illness and Capitalism

3 credits · Undergraduate

Placing the critical political economic bases of health and illness in ethnographic context, this course addresses the following questions: 1) how does the world market impact the cultural experience of health?; 2) how do afflictions of poverty become naturalized as biomedical experiences?; 3) how do communities activate alternative health infrastructures and resist their marginalization?; 4) what kinds of illnesses are characteristic of capitalist economies?; and 5) how have market pressures and profit-seeking retarded scientific inquiry? We will elucidate these questions by exploring case studies from Canada and around the world. Approved with International Development Studies. PREREQUISITES: One SOSA 1000 level course or FYP FORMATS: Lecture