Beyond the Linguistic/Medical Anthropology Divide

Retooling Anthropology to Face Covid-19

Bibliographic Data

ID4851540
AuthorsCharles L Briggs (0000-0003-2023-3285, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume39
Issue7
Pages563-572
Publication date2020-10-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedical Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0145-9740 • E-ISSN: 1545-5882
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01459740.2020.1765168
PMID32579045
OpenAlexW3036299131
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited17

Differing analytics and ethnographic practices impede conversations between linguistic and medical anthropologists. Here I juxtapose articles in this special issue that use diverse ethnographic sites to rethink anthropological concepts of health, disease, care, the body, language, and communication in the light of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. I track how anthropologists and their interlocutors envision relations between ideologies, embedded modeling (or metacommunication), and ordinary pragmatics, particularly by projecting their actual or ideal consonance versus exploring how sounds, bodies, technologies, and practices emerge from disjunctures. Comparing H1N1 in 2009 and COVID-19 prompts reflection on why anthropologists must transcend this foundational divide to tackle pandemic complexities

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Disease · Epistemology · Ethnography · Face (sociological concept · Ideal (ethics · Linguistic anthropology · Linguistics · Medical anthropology · Pandemic · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Interpreting and Communication in Healthcare · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Medicine

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