Medical Technology and Technique

Abstract

The rich array of anthropological research on medical technology has primarily been carried out by anthropologists with specialization in medical anthropology, and science and technology studies. This research benefits from its conversations with the history of medicine. Among journals that have frequently published in this area are: Anthropology and Medicine; Culture, Health and Psychiatry; Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences; Medical Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness; Medical Anthropology Quarterly; Medicine Anthropology Theory; Social History of Medicine; Social Studies of Science; and Sociology of Health and Illness. In this bibliography, material is organized thematically into eleven substantive sections to include work that exemplifies both long-standing topics as well as emerging frontiers of research. The first section introduces readers to the framework of biopolitics that often contextualizes scholarship on technology. Next, the reader is introduced to theorizing technology in relation to technique. This is followed by the issue of discipline in relation to medicine. The next two sections describe sensory practices encompassing the audio and the haptic. The article then turns to the conditions under which technologies are produced and used, treating the question of politics before discussing systems of subjugation. After this, the next section highlights technologies of rendering, broken down into visual technology, writing, and enumeration. The final three sections cover reproductive health, pharmaceuticals, and subjectivities. These topics represent dense nodes of anthropological scholarship that have informed the broader approach of anthropological research on technology and technique.