Genealogía de la Antropología Médica en España

Abstract

In this article we propose a review of medical anthropology in Spain from a historical perspective. The article discusses different stages: 1. the historical relations between medicine and anthropology, including the emergence of medical folklore (19th-20th centuries), 2. the origin of medical anthropology and the obstacles to the emergence of the specialty in a context in which Spanish social anthropology has had other priorities, 3. the institutionalization of medical anthropology (1982-2000), and 4. current developments, such as cultural psychiatry, the study of illness and handicaps, the ethnography of professions and institutions, and the analysis of medical pluralism, among many others. We conclude with an open discussion on the future of medical anthropology in Spain. We focus especially on the challenges facing the field in a global context in which the new process of medicalization is creating new identities —and bio-identities— and complexities requiring new anthropological strategies, and the need to rethink previously established concepts.