Abstract
In considering what makes New Zealand unique for medical anthropological focus, this think piece sets out four themes. These reflect New Zealand’s particular historical, political, social and cultural landscape, and reveal the relevance of local scholarship for wider global debates about health. By tracing the neoliberal reform of state healthcare, indigenous approaches to wellbeing, local cultural practices of health, and the complex ethics involved in health and illness, this paper spotlights the opportunities that New Zealand medical anthropology affords us for addressing the important health and wellbeing challenges that we face today.
Highlights
Over the last forty years medical anthropology have put down strong local roots in New Zealand
Two founding scholars of the discipline in Aotearoa1, Ruth Fitzgerald and Julie Park, claimed over a decade ago that much work remains for medical anthropology in and of New Zealand
Despite an increasing number of medical anthropologists working within and outside of academia, Fitzgerald and Park’s call to action remains prescient, and in early 2017 a group of scholars from across New Zealand responded by establishing the Society of Medical Anthropology in Aotearoa (SOMAA)
Summary
This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press
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