Original scientific paper
Comforting the (Exile) Afflicted in Croatia – Around and Beyond the Analytical Approaches of Critical Medical Anthropology
S. M. Špoljar-Vržina
Abstract
Recently, there has been a growing recognition that any research conducted with
those that suffer should definitely be critical of the continuing policy of group equalizing,
either in relation to ones ethnicity or any other salient parameter. However, it is seldom
that this critical knowledge is applied from »outsiders« when a negation and
re-evaluation of history, especially concerning the medical systems and their historical
development within nations and populations, is used. The propositions within this paper
are given on the basis of knowledge gained in the course of a long-term study dedicated
to the exiled in Croatia, and are tightly linked to theoretical perspectives of critical
medical anthropology, yet exceed its limits. Critical medical anthropologists deeply engage
in ongoing debates that stress how there needs to be more understanding of the necessity
to study the wider social context of any population we approach and analyze.
However, the knowledge about wider social contexts is unachievable without the new
grounds of dialogue being created between professionals and researchers of all disciplines
and equally – regardless whether they are »insiders« or »outsiders« to the problem
in focus. The knowledge about developments in developing countries, and especially of
countries in post-war transition cannot be solely built on strategies of globality and theoretical
explorations disconnected from people and their experiences on ground, especially
when they concern the delicate issues of social and health care. Hopingly, the
given examples in this paper will add to dialogues of corrective kind that should be
raised more often.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
28249
URI
Publication date:
17.6.2002.
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