PubMed · 16294620
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John Oliffe. 2005. Why not ethnography?. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16294620/
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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.
This article contains the reasons for the establishment of sacred trees in Israel based on a field study. It includes 97 interviews with Muslim and Druze informants. While Muslims (Arabs and Bedouins) consider sacred trees especially as an abode of righteous figures' (Wellis') souls or as having a connection to their graves, the Druze relate sacred trees especially to the events or deeds in the lives of prophets and religious leaders. A literary review shows the existence of 24 known reasons for the establishment of sacred trees worldwide, 11 of which are known in Israel one of these is reported here for the first time. We found different trends in monotheistic and polytheistic religions concerning their current worship of sacred trees.
There is no doubt that Gulf service has affected the well-being of some of the members of the UK armed forces who served in that conflict, yet the reason for this remain unclear. At present, the debate surrounding Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) has become stagnant and highly polarized. This paper argues that a new perspective is needed to further improve our understanding of the problem and suggests that the methods and theories of anthropology, with its focus on nuances and subtleties, can provide new insights. Data were generated from 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the UK including participant observation, semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Anthropology provides a unique way of approaching and understanding somatic symptoms and suggests that GWS symptom reporting can be seen as a form of communication. The work focuses on the sufferers' accounts, the symptoms themselves and the context within which we find them in order to better understand what was being expressed and commented upon. Although necessary to contextualize GWS through situating it among other emergent illnesses and widespread health beliefs, this paper shows there is a need to bring back the particular. This work seeks to make sense of the cultural circumstances, specific and general, which gave rise to the illness.