From venomous snakebites to anomalous spirits (in three easy steps)

Journal article

I came to Oxford as an undergraduate in Human Sciences. This was where I first encountered social anthropology and its power as a method of comparative and reflexive critique. But I was also taught to think about humans as simultaneously cultural and biological organisms. In my second year I spent the summer researching snakebites in a missionary hospital in Ecuador. It was this experience that led me to apply for the MPhil in Medical Anthropology, which I undertook from 2005 to 2007. Here I was introduced to some of the philosophical and practical ways in which humans are bisected between the biological and the cultural, and I was encouraged to look for ways of putting things back together using the critical approaches of medical anthropology and phenomenology. This is what I have been trying to do in my MPhil and DPhil theses, inspired by the holistic vision that underlies both Human Sciences and Medical Anthropology at Oxford.

Authors: Dolley, D

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Anthropological Society of Oxford
• Journal: Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford Online
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 256-269
• Publication date: 2015-01-01
• DOI: 10.5287/ora-j55e0edq5
• ISSN: 2040-1876
• Language: English
• Keywords: JASO