Critique of Lock & Scheper-Hughes; A Critical-Interpetive Approach in Medical Anthropology

As a pre-med student, I have always been interested in the field of Medical Anthropology. I was extremely surprised by the reading by Lock & Scheper-Huges.

The argument posed about the Three Bodies was incredibly interesting. The presence of the Cartiesian legacy, within the Individual Body concept, along with Freud’s dynamic psychology, Marx’s view of how the natural world is outside of the body, Harris’s view of the body and how mind collapses within in, initially confused me but then after re-reading it to gain a better knowledge, it made coherent sense and I understood how all these different ideologies could still be supportive of the individual body. The then breaking down of the individual body into the (1) person, self, and individual and (2) body imagery reflected created a more complex interpretation than I had ever considered before.

This was presented yet again in the second body: The Social Body. This one, I found more comprehensible with the use of symbolic and structuralist anthro in the description of the Body as Symbol section because I felt like those are two theories I grasp better than others. The Embodied World really grasped my attention. I understood how as Medical Anthropologist these would be natural observations and thoughts to have, but I never considered thinking of the Social Body in that manner. I was yet again, drawn into the reading further. I specifically thought it was interested when it was stated that illness resides in either the body or the mind, because this is something I have always thought to be true.

The last part of The Body Politic truly intrigued with the metaphor that the social body and the individual and are truly representations of culture and nature. This was especially understandable to me when mentioned how our own culture thinks that the political / social body is suppose to be perfectly lean and fit for both sexes. The idea is ridiculously apparent within our culture; despite the knowledge that the body you were born with/ your individual body in its natural form is more beautiful than trying to be perfect Barbie based on our culture

The closing and final argument made is that “an anthropology of the body necessarily entails a theory of emotions” because these emotions affect our social body and individual body so much.

Although others would not at first understand the analogies and comparisons of different theories presented in this article to define the 3 bodies, the last two parts of this article, I feel would be beneficial for everyone to read. Especially those who understand the difficulties of balancing their emotions, or understand how the body displays distress from the social and cultural aspects in which the body resides.