Mini-ethnography: meaningful exploration made easy.

This paper provides a preliminary evaluation of fifty-eight ethnomedicinal plants used in Trinidad and Tobago for skin problems, stomach problems, pain and internal parasites for safety and possible efficacy. Thirty respondents, ten of whom were male were interviewed from September 1996 to September 2000 on medicinal plant use for health problems. The respondents were obtained by snowball sampling, and were found in thirteen different sites, 12 in Trinidad and one in Tobago. The uses are compared to those current in Asia. Bambusa vulgaris, Bidens alba, Jatropha curcas, Neurolaena lobata, Peperomia rotundifolia and Phyllanthus urinaria are possibly efficacious for stomach problems, pain and internal parasites. Further scientific study of these plants is warranted.

Anthropology, Cultural↗

PubMed2007

[An anthropological view of addiction].

In psychiatric discourse, addiction is normally understood according to the original paradigm of "dependency" which claims lifelong and unchangeable dependency on the addictive substance or "psychotropic technique". In the attempt to reduce damage or achieve abstinency, therapeutic interests and understanding of the human mind contradict this inflexibility. This contradiction in psychiatric understanding of addiction can be viewed as a dynamic part of the addiction process. A philosophical anthropology of addiction is presented in that light. Using the concept "the psychotropic technique achieves a superior position", both sides of the psychiatric understanding are combined and integrated. The addictive mind and its self-awareness can then be understood as a "fragile monoidentity". Implications of such an understanding are discussed.

Anthropology, Cultural↗