Diffusion reconsidered: variation and transformation in biomedical practice, a case study from Mexico.

Abstract

This paper focuses on biomedical transformations in an economically developing nation and poses the question, what are the variant and invariant aspects of biomedical practice, using empirical data from Mexico? I propose that when infectious disease predominated, biomedicine may have been uniformly practiced the world over, but with the ascent of chronic disease of unknown etiology, certain aspects of biomedical practice, especially diagnoses and causality, become reinterpreted culturally and idiosyncratically. The findings of the case study also illuminate current theories of globalization and earlier anthropological theories of diffusion as well as issues concerning the social constructivist perspective.