The Healthy Ancestor: Embodied Inequality and the Revitalization of Native Hawai'ian Health

Native Americans, researchers increasingly worry, are disproportionately victims of epidemics and poor health because they "fail" to seek medical care, are "non-compliant" patients, or "lack immunity" enjoyed by the "mainstream" population. Challenging this dominant approach to indigenous health, Juliet McMullin shows how it masks more fundamental inequalities that become literally embodied in Native Americans, shifting blame from unequal social relations to biology, individual behavior, and cultural or personal deficiencies. Weaving a complex story of Native Hawai'ian health in its historical, political, and cultural context, she shows how traditional practices that integrated relationships of caring for the land, the body, and the ancestors are being revitalized both on the islands and in the indigenous diaspora. For the fields of medical anthropology, public health, nursing, epidemiology, and indigenous studies, McMullin's important book offers models for more effective and culturally appropriate approaches to building healthy communities.

Author: Juliet McMullin
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 08/31/2010
Pages: 200
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.61lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.40w x 0.38d
ISBN13: 9781598745009
ISBN10: 159874500X
BISAC Categories:
- Medical | Public Health
- Social Science | Anthropology | Cultural & Social
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | Native American Studies

About the Author
Juliet Marie McMullin is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California Riverside.

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