ABSTRACT

The relationship between anthropology and global health has been like a dysfunctional relationship that has nonetheless endured. Despite constant bickering and threats to walk out, each partner remains unable to envisage life without the other. On one side, medics in foreign lands rely on anthropologists to address what they have understood as ‘cultural barriers’ to biomedical intervention. On the other, anthropologists have found it difficult to engage with populations they study without confronting the biological and social conditions that afflict them. This intimate and at times conflicted relationship dates back to the infancy of both fields. Both anthropology and biomedical public health came of age almost a century ago in the upheaval following the First World War and the apogee of colonial expansion. Wars and colonialism linked questions of public health with the exercise of rule beyond the borders of European homelands. As a rudimentary public health apparatus began to turn to questions of ‘native’ health, anthropology emerged as a systematic approach to the study and understanding of those whose health was of increasing concern to colonial governments. Ever since, anthropological insights have informed global health programmes (Nichter 1989). In turn, global health programmes have served as a platform for anthropological research.