Medical Anthropology @ UWM
Medical anthropology at UWM encompasses a wide range of cultural, social and biological perspectives on human health and the medical system. Faculty are actively engaged in research both in the U.S. and abroad on topics including
- the economics of the pharmaceutical industry
- the ethnography of medical ethics
- biocultural studies
The program is strongest in the anthropology of mental health and psychiatry. Faculty members share overlapping interests in the causes of mental disorder and the social contexts of treatment. Graduate students, however, can pursue a wide range of topics, drawing on the expertise of UWM and other local anthropologists in medical pluralism, AIDS prevention, and international humanitarian assistance.
Topics of recent PhD dissertations at UWM related to medical anthropology:
- Medical migration in the US/Mexico borderlands
- GIS and Malaria in West Africa
- Social class and strategies of motherhood in Milwaukee's African-American community
- Mourning, funeral rites, and social memory in Hmong families
