Stefan Ecks
Biographic Data
| ID | 6055532 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stefan Ecks |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stefan |
| FAMILY NAME | Ecks |
| SIGNATURE | ECKS S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Edinburgh |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 36 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1969 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Depression
Depression, which psychiatrists regard as a most common mental illness, has been examined by anthropologists especially closely since the 1980s. While most medical experts consider depression as a universal, neurobiological disease that requires a global public health intervention, anthropologists instead ask why the illness known in psychiatry as ‘depression’ appears to have been extremely rare in much of the world until very recently. They also…
Medical Anthropology Methods: Grounded Theory
“Grounded theory” (GT) is an approach to research that originates in 1960s American sociology and has since been taken up by many other disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities. GT tries to show that qualitative research can be as rigorous as quantitative research and that it is better to let concepts emerge from data rather than using data to test hypotheses. Despite many scholars saying that they follow GT procedures, in practice t…
Gas
Commentary: Ethnographic critiques of global mental health
Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India
Three propositions for an evidence-based medical anthropology
Medicine seems to collect evidence in ways entirely different from social anthropology. It aims to gather 'best evidence' through large randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and advanced methods of statistical analysis. The latest phase in this drive towards quantification is the global rise of evidence-based medicine (EBM). From the perspective of EBM, ethnographic evidence, with all its emphasis on 'local' knowledge, is at best anecdotal, at wors…
Fruits of worship: Practical religion in Bengal - Ralph W. Nicholas
Towards an ethnography of Indian homeopathy
Despite its large number of practitioners, medical anthropology has given little attention to Indian homeopathy. In historical accounts, homeopathy's popularity is explained by its position as a modern, yet non-colonial form of medicine, which became indigenized during the last 150 years. Other scholars argue that homeopathic concepts converge with Indian ideas on healing. However, few empirical data have been gathered on homeopathic practice in …
Bodily sovereignty as political sovereignty: Self-care' in Kolkata, India
This paper explores the potentials of applying Michel Foucault's notion of 'self-care' to issues in medical anthropology. While Foucault's writings on regimes of power/knowledge have had an enormous influence on medical anthropologists, his late works on the ethics of the self have not yet received much attention. This paper discusses Foucault's notion of self-care in relation to Ayurvedic interpretations of digestion in Kolkata (formerly Calcutt…
When the Government Changes, the Card Will Also Change: Questioning Identity in Biometric Smartcards for National Health Insurance (RSBY) in India
Since the mid-2000s, government initiatives in India have been gripped by the idea that biometric identification is more efficient than any form of paper-based documentation. In this article, I explore how new health care schemes in India have adopted this technocratic promise. On the basis of ethnographic research in Karnataka, I describe how enrolments for biometric smartcards for RSBY insurance proceeds. These enrolments are meant to turn the …
Bodily sovereignty as political sovereignty: Self-care' in Kolkata, India
This paper explores the potentials of applying Michel Foucault's notion of 'self-care' to issues in medical anthropology. While Foucault's writings on regimes of power/knowledge have had an enormous influence on medical anthropologists, his late works on the ethics of the self have not yet received much attention. This paper discusses Foucault's notion of self-care in relation to Ayurvedic interpretations of digestion in Kolkata (formerly Calcutt…
Three propositions for an evidence-based medical anthropology
Medicine seems to collect evidence in ways entirely different from social anthropology. It aims to gather 'best evidence' through large randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and advanced methods of statistical analysis. The latest phase in this drive towards quantification is the global rise of evidence-based medicine (EBM). From the perspective of EBM, ethnographic evidence, with all its emphasis on 'local' knowledge, is at best anecdotal, at wors…
Towards an ethnography of Indian homeopathy
Despite its large number of practitioners, medical anthropology has given little attention to Indian homeopathy. In historical accounts, homeopathy's popularity is explained by its position as a modern, yet non-colonial form of medicine, which became indigenized during the last 150 years. Other scholars argue that homeopathic concepts converge with Indian ideas on healing. However, few empirical data have been gathered on homeopathic practice in …
When the Government Changes, the Card Will Also Change: Questioning Identity in Biometric Smartcards for National Health Insurance (RSBY) in India
Since the mid-2000s, government initiatives in India have been gripped by the idea that biometric identification is more efficient than any form of paper-based documentation. In this article, I explore how new health care schemes in India have adopted this technocratic promise. On the basis of ethnographic research in Karnataka, I describe how enrolments for biometric smartcards for RSBY insurance proceeds. These enrolments are meant to turn the …
Gas
When the Government Changes, the Card Will Also Change: Questioning Identity in Biometric Smartcards for National Health Insurance (RSBY) in India
Since the mid-2000s, government initiatives in India have been gripped by the idea that biometric identification is more efficient than any form of paper-based documentation. In this article, I explore how new health care schemes in India have adopted this technocratic promise. On the basis of ethnographic research in Karnataka, I describe how enrolments for biometric smartcards for RSBY insurance proceeds. These enrolments are meant to turn the …
Towards an ethnography of Indian homeopathy
Despite its large number of practitioners, medical anthropology has given little attention to Indian homeopathy. In historical accounts, homeopathy's popularity is explained by its position as a modern, yet non-colonial form of medicine, which became indigenized during the last 150 years. Other scholars argue that homeopathic concepts converge with Indian ideas on healing. However, few empirical data have been gathered on homeopathic practice in …
Bodily sovereignty as political sovereignty: Self-care' in Kolkata, India
This paper explores the potentials of applying Michel Foucault's notion of 'self-care' to issues in medical anthropology. While Foucault's writings on regimes of power/knowledge have had an enormous influence on medical anthropologists, his late works on the ethics of the self have not yet received much attention. This paper discusses Foucault's notion of self-care in relation to Ayurvedic interpretations of digestion in Kolkata (formerly Calcutt…
Fruits of worship: Practical religion in Bengal - Ralph W. Nicholas
Three propositions for an evidence-based medical anthropology
Medicine seems to collect evidence in ways entirely different from social anthropology. It aims to gather 'best evidence' through large randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and advanced methods of statistical analysis. The latest phase in this drive towards quantification is the global rise of evidence-based medicine (EBM). From the perspective of EBM, ethnographic evidence, with all its emphasis on 'local' knowledge, is at best anecdotal, at wors…
Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India
Commentary: Ethnographic critiques of global mental health
Gas
Medical Anthropology Methods: Grounded Theory
“Grounded theory” (GT) is an approach to research that originates in 1960s American sociology and has since been taken up by many other disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities. GT tries to show that qualitative research can be as rigorous as quantitative research and that it is better to let concepts emerge from data rather than using data to test hypotheses. Despite many scholars saying that they follow GT procedures, in practice t…
Depression
Depression, which psychiatrists regard as a most common mental illness, has been examined by anthropologists especially closely since the 1980s. While most medical experts consider depression as a universal, neurobiological disease that requires a global public health intervention, anthropologists instead ask why the illness known in psychiatry as ‘depression’ appears to have been extremely rare in much of the world until very recently. They also…
Sociology (7 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Anthropology (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works) · Political science (3 works) · Citation (2 works) · Ethnography (2 works)