Abstract

BELLAGUARDA, Maria Lígia dos Reis; PADILHA, Maria Itayra Coelho; ARGENTA, Maritê Inês  and  BORENSTEIN, Miriam Süsskind. The human body in an approach to the anthropology of health. Rev. Mal-Estar Subj. [online]. 2011, vol.11, n.3, pp. 1113-1129. ISSN 1518-6148.

This study was structured based on the discussions of health anthropology and neurobiology in the discipline of the doctorate in anthropology of health, a reflexive perspective. The guiding thought is a question about what kind of relationship, in the health-disease process, is established between body, neurobiology and anthropology of health. To achieve the objective of this reflection, this paper discusses the human body as the object of the experience of health-disease processes using the approach of anthropology of health. It carries, in itself a consideration, in part intimate, of the human relations carried out with the body and its social representation as a concrete mode of externalize health and pathology in the scopes social and cultural. The article outlines an interrelation between health anthropology and neurobiology, using specific anthropological literature. This articulation of the two sciences has the aim to point to the adoption of new concepts, in an attempt to bring to the surface the idea that knowledge of human physiology does not reside only in the limits of the body, but also in response to external stimuli, influencing behaviors, signs and symptoms, relationships and health and disease, in accordance with a culturally established social reality. Thus, physical, experiential and anthropology-social dimensions are inseparable for the understanding of the health-disease process.

Keywords : Human body; anthropology; neurobiology; health; disease.

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