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The Anthropology of Structural Violence in Disease Epidemics
Essay Instructions:
Write a 7-9 page paper, typed, Times font, 1 inch margins all sides, double spaced. Paginate. No cover page or folder. Bibliography at end. Use academic prose. Cite your sources and quote them where appropriate. State a thesis and present evidence to confirm it.
Discuss the following journal article, in light of course themes:
Paul Farmer is a famous Harvard professor, anthropologist, and medical doctor who works with the poor in Haiti. He is a critic of high-cost medicine, and of the unequal distribution of wealth on Earth.
Farmer, Paul. 2004. “An Anthropology of Structural Violence,” Current Anthropology. Vol. 45, No. 3 (June 2004), pp. 305-325.
Stable URL: http://www(dot)jstor(dot)org(dot)myaccess(dot)library(dot)utoronto(dot)ca/stable/10.1086/382250
Your paper should engage Farmer's essay, as well as texts and lectures from ANT208.
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Date: 20/05/2012
The Anthropology of Structural Violence in Disease Epidemics
As a result of contacts with patients, doctors normally appreciate the idea that increased social forces such as racism, poverty, gender violence and the relevant policies determine an individual that becomes sick and who contains access to health care. As far as various practitioners of public health are concerned, various social disease determinants are normally difficult to disregard. However, the awareness is rarely channeled into formal frameworks which connect social analysis towards all time clinical practice (Bauman, 78). In the actual sense, lethal diseases such as tuberculosis and AIDS are normally associated with inequality and poverty. This is the reason these two diseases are mostly prevalent in poor countries. According to Farmer, poverty and inequality has created a differential risk towards infection. This is inclusive of adverse results including death. Thus, it is vital to connect such anthropology to epidemiology and towards an understanding of distinct access to new therapeutic and diagnostic tools. This paper discusses Paul Farmer’s journal article “An Anthropology of Structural Violence”, in light of course themes.
All serious understanding of current epidemics of tuberculosis and AIDS after the end of colonialism calls for a thorough understanding of history and political economy. The origin and persistence of these outbreaks in Haiti has roots in the various enduring impacts of expansion by Europeans in the New World alongside slavery and the associated racism. The anthropology of this kind of structural violence is drawn on the biology, history and political economy. These are the main reasons why much of Farmer’s work is concerned with the study of infectious diseases like tuberculosis and malaria. After opening up a clinic in rural Haiti, Farmer observed the dissemination of HIV in the entire Central Plateau of Haiti. He watched as the virus increased from being a city disease in Port-au-Prince to a disease which filled the majority of the rural folk especially women (Farmer, 306).
Farmer makes a claim that HIV represents a disease for the poor. The disease normally strikes people who are extremely susceptible in ineqalitarian societies. According to Farmers, HIV does not strike randomly. On the other hand, it assumes a given inequality gradient. In most cases, the poor represent the least group of individuals capable of overcoming the situation. This is because of their limited medical and financial resources. As a result, this group of individuals greatly increased health outcomes. As a result a theological inspiration, Farmer greatly advocates for a type of health care based on social justice and which offers the poor a preferential option. Structural violence as used Farmer describes the economic and historical policies, forces and structures which limit the agency for the poor individuals. This type of structural violence takes mainly two forms. These are either covert or indirect. On the contrary, it leads into extreme suffering because of the structured risk (Scheper-Hughes & Bourgois, 57). This is supported by Robin, 99, as he explains the rebellion of the people of color in various states. He specifically states the resistance of the black and Chicano youth who worked in McDonalds. The author continues to state the very major issue of African Americans struggles among the working class so as to have the rights they had long been denied. Farmer also focused on the exploitation of color to sell a product or institute a culture. According to Watts & Orbe, (p.2) the “Whassup” Budweiser advert is analyzed on its influence on African American culture and its impact in pop culture. The authors states that “the “Whassup?!” ad campaign is constitutive of an ambivalence in the white imagination regarding “authentic” blackness. Idealism concerning racial comity interpenetrates racial pessimism in such a way as to produce discursive tensions within cultural artifacts that seek to sell “race”.”(Watts & Orbe, 16). This is echoed by Khosravi, (19) as he states that “popular culture was seen as a manifestation of weststruckness,” it has been regarded as the main source of cultural crimes”.
This normally leaves the individuals at the margins likely to take the burden of all the suffering. Its historical, economic and legal burden halts people, societies and groups from arriving at their full capacity and potential. The element of violence in this concept normally seems invisible towards the people it greatly affects. This makes its circumstances look very normal towards those who greatly suffer. Farmer is simply against various immodest claims concerning casualty made by people working or studying with persons infected with HIV. These claims normally put the HIV infection blame on people, their risk character and cultural variations. On the contrary, the claims ignore economic, political and historical structures that create HIV concentration in poor resource areas.
Such type of victim-blaming illustrates a personal agency exaggeration and does not put into consideration various structural limitations which forbid personal choices. This often implies the sacrifice of their personal health in order to meet both personal and financial needs. Furthermore, Farmer narrates a story of a young woman called Acephie born within a set up of structural violence in the Kay town in the Central Plateau of Haiti. Within this area, a big number of peasant farmers had been displaces due to the construction of a hydroelectric dam. When she was nineteen years old, she started to make a contribution towards the household income through the selling of produce alongside her mum at the market centre quite some distance away on foot. Then, a military captain who had the few jobs within the area started showing interest to Acephie. The fact that he was married with kids did not matter a lot to her. She saw a golden chance to get financial security and a proper way out. After the end of their sexual encounter, the military man fell sick and died mysteriously (Farmer 308).
At the age of 22, she travelled to Port-au-Prince to start working as a maid. Being a maid was among the few available options for work to many young women in Haiti. Later, she fell in love with a man called Blanco who had the same background. She became pregnant which made her employers to fire her. This made her to go back to Kay where she had to raise her child as a single parent. Soon, she was diagnosed with HIV a condition she blames her work as being a servant. If poverty had not left her family in such state of despair, she may not have been involved with the captain who was a married man for monetary reasons (Fabian, 91). Had there been job options in Kay, alongside her family, things would have been very different...
Tutor’s Name:
Course/Grade:
Date: 20/05/2012
The Anthropology of Structural Violence in Disease Epidemics
As a result of contacts with patients, doctors normally appreciate the idea that increased social forces such as racism, poverty, gender violence and the relevant policies determine an individual that becomes sick and who contains access to health care. As far as various practitioners of public health are concerned, various social disease determinants are normally difficult to disregard. However, the awareness is rarely channeled into formal frameworks which connect social analysis towards all time clinical practice (Bauman, 78). In the actual sense, lethal diseases such as tuberculosis and AIDS are normally associated with inequality and poverty. This is the reason these two diseases are mostly prevalent in poor countries. According to Farmer, poverty and inequality has created a differential risk towards infection. This is inclusive of adverse results including death. Thus, it is vital to connect such anthropology to epidemiology and towards an understanding of distinct access to new therapeutic and diagnostic tools. This paper discusses Paul Farmer’s journal article “An Anthropology of Structural Violence”, in light of course themes.
All serious understanding of current epidemics of tuberculosis and AIDS after the end of colonialism calls for a thorough understanding of history and political economy. The origin and persistence of these outbreaks in Haiti has roots in the various enduring impacts of expansion by Europeans in the New World alongside slavery and the associated racism. The anthropology of this kind of structural violence is drawn on the biology, history and political economy. These are the main reasons why much of Farmer’s work is concerned with the study of infectious diseases like tuberculosis and malaria. After opening up a clinic in rural Haiti, Farmer observed the dissemination of HIV in the entire Central Plateau of Haiti. He watched as the virus increased from being a city disease in Port-au-Prince to a disease which filled the majority of the rural folk especially women (Farmer, 306).
Farmer makes a claim that HIV represents a disease for the poor. The disease normally strikes people who are extremely susceptible in ineqalitarian societies. According to Farmers, HIV does not strike randomly. On the other hand, it assumes a given inequality gradient. In most cases, the poor represent the least group of individuals capable of overcoming the situation. This is because of their limited medical and financial resources. As a result, this group of individuals greatly increased health outcomes. As a result a theological inspiration, Farmer greatly advocates for a type of health care based on social justice and which offers the poor a preferential option. Structural violence as used Farmer describes the economic and historical policies, forces and structures which limit the agency for the poor individuals. This type of structural violence takes mainly two forms. These are either covert or indirect. On the contrary, it leads into extreme suffering because of the structured risk (Scheper-Hughes & Bourgois, 57). This is supported by Robin, 99, as he explains the rebellion of the people of color in various states. He specifically states the resistance of the black and Chicano youth who worked in McDonalds. The author continues to state the very major issue of African Americans struggles among the working class so as to have the rights they had long been denied. Farmer also focused on the exploitation of color to sell a product or institute a culture. According to Watts & Orbe, (p.2) the “Whassup” Budweiser advert is analyzed on its influence on African American culture and its impact in pop culture. The authors states that “the “Whassup?!” ad campaign is constitutive of an ambivalence in the white imagination regarding “authentic” blackness. Idealism concerning racial comity interpenetrates racial pessimism in such a way as to produce discursive tensions within cultural artifacts that seek to sell “race”.”(Watts & Orbe, 16). This is echoed by Khosravi, (19) as he states that “popular culture was seen as a manifestation of weststruckness,” it has been regarded as the main source of cultural crimes”.
This normally leaves the individuals at the margins likely to take the burden of all the suffering. Its historical, economic and legal burden halts people, societies and groups from arriving at their full capacity and potential. The element of violence in this concept normally seems invisible towards the people it greatly affects. This makes its circumstances look very normal towards those who greatly suffer. Farmer is simply against various immodest claims concerning casualty made by people working or studying with persons infected with HIV. These claims normally put the HIV infection blame on people, their risk character and cultural variations. On the contrary, the claims ignore economic, political and historical structures that create HIV concentration in poor resource areas.
Such type of victim-blaming illustrates a personal agency exaggeration and does not put into consideration various structural limitations which forbid personal choices. This often implies the sacrifice of their personal health in order to meet both personal and financial needs. Furthermore, Farmer narrates a story of a young woman called Acephie born within a set up of structural violence in the Kay town in the Central Plateau of Haiti. Within this area, a big number of peasant farmers had been displaces due to the construction of a hydroelectric dam. When she was nineteen years old, she started to make a contribution towards the household income through the selling of produce alongside her mum at the market centre quite some distance away on foot. Then, a military captain who had the few jobs within the area started showing interest to Acephie. The fact that he was married with kids did not matter a lot to her. She saw a golden chance to get financial security and a proper way out. After the end of their sexual encounter, the military man fell sick and died mysteriously (Farmer 308).
At the age of 22, she travelled to Port-au-Prince to start working as a maid. Being a maid was among the few available options for work to many young women in Haiti. Later, she fell in love with a man called Blanco who had the same background. She became pregnant which made her employers to fire her. This made her to go back to Kay where she had to raise her child as a single parent. Soon, she was diagnosed with HIV a condition she blames her work as being a servant. If poverty had not left her family in such state of despair, she may not have been involved with the captain who was a married man for monetary reasons (Fabian, 91). Had there been job options in Kay, alongside her family, things would have been very different...
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