Urban Folk Medicine: A Functional Overview
- 1 March 1978
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Wiley in American Anthropologist
- Vol. 80 (1) , 71-84
- https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1978.80.1.02a00050
Abstract
Social and economic functions of folk illness and folk medicine are fairly well known for rural contexts but still lack codification for urban milieus. In this exploratory paper, folk health practices are examined in terms of their response to urban socioeconomic characteristics. Such practices appear to serve functions of acculturation, guilt displacement resulting from failure to achieve, and subgroup identity maintenance, among others. Folk practices are resilient, readily shifting to adjunct functions of healing under pressure from effective modern medical and welfare systems. [medical anthropology, urban anthropology, curanderismo, ethnology, health]This publication has 24 references indexed in Scilit:
- Pathophysiological assessment of hypertensive heart disease by echocardiography (ECHO)The American Journal of Cardiology, 1976
- The Urban Curandero1American Anthropologist, 1971
- Sex Differences in the Incidence of Susto in Two Zapotec Pueblos: An Analysis of the Relationships between Sex Role Expectations and a Folk IllnessEthnology, 1968
- Folk diseases among urban Mexican-Americans. Etiology, symptoms, and treatmentJAMA, 1966
- Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good*American Anthropologist, 1965
- The Epidemiology of a Folk Illness: Susto in Hispanic AmericaEthnology, 1964
- Health consequences of culture change—II: The effect of urbanization on coronary heart mortality in rural residentsJournal of Chronic Diseases, 1964
- “Wild Man” Behavior in a New Guinea Highlands Community1American Anthropologist, 1964
- The Cultural Role of CitiesEconomic Development and Cultural Change, 1954
- The abnormal among the Ojibwa Indians.The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1938