An in-depth look at the ecology, history, and politics of land use among the Turkana pastoral people in Northern Kenya Based on sixteen years of fieldwork among the pastoral Turkana people, McCabe examines how individuals use the land and make decisions about mobility, livestock, and the use of natural resources in an environment characterized by aridity, unpredictability, insecurity, and violence. The Turkana are one of the world's most mobile peoples, but understanding why and how they move is a complex task influenced by politics, violence, historical relations among ethnic groups, and the government, as well as by the arid land they call home. As one of the original members of the South Turkana Ecosystem Project, McCabe draws on a wealth of ecological data in his analysis. His long-standing relationship with four Turkana families personalize his insights and conclusions, inviting readers into the lives of these individuals, their families, and the way they cope with their environment and political events in daily life. J. Terrence McCabe is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Boulder.

This reader looks at both the biological and cultural aspects of health and healing within a comparative framework. Health and Healing in Comparative Perspective provides both fascinating comparative ethnographic detail and a theoretical framework for organizing and interpreting information about health. While there are many health-related fields represented in this book, its core discipline is medical anthropology and its main focus is the comparative approach. Cross-cultural comparison gives anthropological analysis breadth while the evolutionary time scale gives it depth. These two features have always been fundamental to anthropology and continue to distinguish it among the social sciences. A third feature is the in-depth knowledge of culture produced by anthropological methods such as participant-observation, involving long-term presence in and research among a study population. For medical anthropology, medical sociology, public health, nursing courses.

The recent and historically unique low level of fertility in industrialised nations poses a number of important medical questions, arising because reproductive physiology did not evolve to function optimally in this modern environment. In some non-industrialised regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa, persistent high fertility and rapid population growth are associated with environmental deterioration. How do fecundity and fertility respond to such degradations? Do improvements of industrial environments or nutrition and health measurably alter fertility or fecundity? These are some of the issues explored in this volume, which contains contributions from anthropologists, demographers, reproductive biologists and epidemiologists.

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This reader provides both fascinating comparative ethnographic detail and a theoretical framework for organizing and interpreting information about health. While there are many health-related fields represented in this book, its core discipline is medical anthropology and its main focus is the comparative approach. Cross-cultural comparison gives anthropological analysis breadth while the evolutionary time scale gives it depth. These two features have always been fundamental to anthropology and continue to distinguish it among the social sciences. A third feature is the in-depth knowledge of culture produced by anthropological methods such as participant-observation, involving long-term presence in and research among a study population.The first part of the book explores healing systems in different cultures; the second and third provide a strong grounding in evolutionary and culture-oriented analysis, making clear the connections between biology and culture as they affect health; the final part emphasizes case studies that apply the theoretical principles presented earlier to particular health topics.For medical anthropology, medical sociology, public health, nursing, and medical training professionals.