Medical Anthropology

Please note that this is not a complete list. We aim to keep this list updated with books published within the last two years that have not yet been reviewed by the Forum. If you would like to review a title not listed here, please get in touch.

*Because there is always overlap between categories, titles listed here may also be included in our Socio-Cultural and Linguistic list as well. We’ve provided a separate list here to make it easier to locate books relating to medical anthropology themes. 

Available Titles:

Bartlett, Nicholas. 2020. Recovering Histories: Life and Labor after Heroin in Reform-Era China. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Bartoszko, Aleksandra. 2021a. Treating Heroin Addiction in Norway: The Pharmaceutical Other. Routledge Studies in Health and Medical Anthropology. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge.

Bell, Kirsten. 2022. Silent but Deadly: The Underlying Cultural Patterns of Everyday Behaviour. London: Caw Press.

Block, Ellen, and Will McGrath. 2019. Infected Kin: Orphan Care and AIDS in Lesotho. Medical Anthropology: Health, Inequality, and Social Justice. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Buchbinder, Mara. 2021. Scripting Death: Stories of Assisted Dying in America. California Series in Public Anthropology 50. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Cerulli, Anthony Michael. 2021. The Practice of Texts: Education and Healing in South India. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Csordas, Thomas J., and Janis H. Jenkins. 2020. Troubled in the Land of Enchantment: Adolescent Experience of Psychiatric Treatment. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Donaldson, Brianne, and Ana Bajželj. 2021. Insistent Life: Principles for Bioethics in the Jain Tradition. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

El-Shaarawi, Nadia, and Stéphanie Larchanché, eds. 2022. Migration and Health: Challenging the Borders of Belonging, Care, and Policy. Studies of the Biosocial Society, volume 10. New York: Berghahn Books.

Featherstone, Katie, and Andy Northcott. 2020. Wandering the Wards: An Ethnography of Hospital Care and Its Consequences for People Living with Dementia. Routledge Studies in Health and Medical Anthropology. New York: Routledge.

Haas, Bridget M. 2023. Suspended Lives: Navigating Everyday Violence in the US Asylum System. Critical Refugee Studies 4. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Hardin, Jessica A. 2018. Faith and the Pursuit of Health: Cardiometabolic Disorders in Samoa. Medical Anthropology. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Heckert, Carina. 2018. Fault Lines of Care: Gender, HIV, and Global Health in Bolivia. Medical Anthropology: Health, Inequality, and Social Justice. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Heller, Alison. 2019. Fistula Politics: Birthing Injuries and the Quest for Continence in Niger. Medical Anthropology: Health, Inequality, and Social Justice. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Hsu, Elisabeth. 2022. Chinese Medicine in East Africa: An Intimacy with Strangers. Epistemologies of Healing, volume 20. New York: Berghahn Books.

Hughes Rinker, Cortney. 2021. Actively Dying: The Creation of Muslim Identities through End-of-Life Care in the United States. Routledge Studies in Health and Medical Anthropology. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.

ʻAlī, ʻInāyat, and Robbie Davis-Floyd, eds. 2022. Negotiating the Pandemic: Cultural, National, and Individual Constructions of COVID-19. First Edition. Routledge Studies in Health and Medical Anthropology. New York: Routledge.

Inhorn, Marcia C. 2023. Motherhood on Ice: The Mating Gap and Why Women Freeze Their Eggs. Anthropologies of American Medicine: Culture, Power, and Practice. New York: New York University Press.

Jackson, Aaron J. 2021. Worlds of Care: The Emotional Lives of Fathers Caring for Children with Disabilities. California Series in Public Anthropology. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Jarrín, Alvaro, and Chiara Pussetti, eds. 2021. Remaking the Human: Cosmetic Technologies of Body Repair, Reshaping, and Replacement. Politics of Repair, volume 2. New York: Berghahn Books.

Kalofonos, Ippolytos. 2021. All I Eat Is Medicine: Going Hungry in Mozambique’s AIDS Economy. California Series in Public Anthropology 52. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Kierans, Ciara. 2020. Chronic Failures: Kidneys, Regimes of Care, and the Mexican State. Medical Anthropology: Health, Inequality, and Social Justice. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Kline, Nolan. 2019. Pathogenic Policing: Immigration Enforcement and Health in the US South. Medical Anthropology. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Larchanché, Stéphanie. 2020. Cultural Anxieties: Managing Migrant Suffering in France. Medical Anthropology. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Mazzeo, Agata. 2021. Dust inside: Fighting and Living with Asbestos-Related Disasters in Brazil. New York: Berghahn Books.

Meinert, Lotte, and Jens Seeberg, eds. 2022. Configuring Contagion: Ethnographies of Biosocial Epidemics. First edition. Epistemologies of Healing 19. New York: Berghahn Books.

Micale, Mark S., and Hans Pols, eds. 2022. Traumatic Pasts in Asia: History, Psychiatry, and Trauma from the 1930s to the Present. New York: Berghahn.

Nahar, Papreen. 2022. Childlessness in Bangladesh: Intersectionality, Suffering and Resilience. Routledge Studies in Health and Medical Anthropology. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge.

Pfeiffer, Elizabeth J. 2022. Viral Frictions: Global Health and the Persistence of HIV Stigma in Kenya. Medical Anthropology. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Pop, Cristina Alexandra. 2022. The Cancer within: Reproduction, Cultural Transformation, and Health Care in Romania. Medical Anthropology. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Reed, Joel Christian. 2018. Landscapes of Activism: Civil Society and HIV and AIDS Care in Northern Mozambique. Medical Anthropology : Health, Inequality, and Social Justice. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Reich, Rebecca. 2018. State of Madness: Psychiatry, Literature, and Dissent after Stalin. DeKalb, IL: NIU Press.

Reihling, Hans. 2020. Affective Health and Masculinities in South Africa: An Ethnography of (in)Vulnerability. Routledge Studies in Health and Medical Anthropology. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge.

Reyes-Foster, Beatriz M. 2018. Psychiatric Encounters: Madness and Modernity in Yucatan, Mexico. Medical Anthropology: Health, Inequality, and Social Justice. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Saxton, Dvera I. 2021. The Devil’s Fruit: Farmworkers, Health and Environmental Justice. Medical Anthropology. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Shohet, Merav. 2021. Silence and Sacrifice: Family Stories of Care and the Limits of Love in Vietnam. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Singh, Holly Donahue. 2022. Infertility in a Crowded Country: Hiding Reproduction in India. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Smith-Oka, Vania. 2021. Becoming Gods: Medical Training in Mexican Hospitals. Medical Anthropology: Health, Inequality, and Social Justice. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Stonington, Scott. 2020. The Spirit Ambulance: Choreographing the End of Life in Thailand. California Series in Public Anthropology 49. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Strong, Adrienne E. 2020. Documenting Death: Maternal Mortality and the Ethics of Care in Tanzania. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Suh, Siri. 2021. Dying to Count: Post-Abortion Care and Global Reproductive Health Politics in Senegal. Medical Anthropology. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Svendsen, Mette N. 2022. Near Human: Border Zones of Species, Life, and Belonging. Medical Anthropology. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Syvertsen, Jennifer Leigh. 2022. Dangerous Love: Sex Work, Drug Use, and the Pursuit of Intimacy in Tijuana, Mexico. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Tremayne, Soraya. 2022. Inconceivable Iran: To Reproduce or Not to Reproduce? Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality : Social and Cultural Perspectives, volume 50. New York: Berghahn Books.

Trentini, Daria. 2021. At Ansha’s: Life in the Spirit Mosque of a Healer in Mozambique. Medical Anthropology. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Valdez, Natali. 2022. Weighing the Future: Race, Science, and Pregnancy Trials in the Postgenomic Era. Critical Environments : Nature, Science and Politics 9. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Versfeld, Anna. 2023. Making Uncertainty: Tuberculosis, Substance Use, and Pathways to Health in South Africa. Medical Anthropology. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Vivian, Lauraine Margaret Helen. 2021. AmaXhosa Circumcision: Stories of Manhood and Mental Health. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge.

Wardlow, Holly. 2020. Fencing in AIDS: Gender, Vulnerability, and Care in Papua New Guinea. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Weaver, Lesley Jo. 2018. Sugar and Tension: Diabetes and Gender in Modern India. Medical Anthropology: Health, Inequality, and Social Justice. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Whittaker, Andrea. 2019. International Surrogacy as Disruptive Industry in Southeast Asia. Medical Anthropology. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Wichelen, Sonja van. 2019. Legitimating Life: Adoption in the Age of Globalization and Biotechnology. Medical Anthropology: Health, Inequality, and Social Justice. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.