Logo Oapen
  • Search
  • Join
    • Deposit
    • For Librarians
    • For Publishers
    • For Researchers
    • Funders
    • Resources
    • OAPEN
    • For Librarians
    • For Publishers
    • For Researchers
    • Funders
    • Resources
    • OAPEN
    View Item 
    •   OAPEN Home
    • View Item
    •   OAPEN Home
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Pandora’s Box

    Ethnography and the Comparison of Medical Beliefs

    Thumbnail
    Download PDF Viewer
    Author(s)
    Lewis, Gilbert
    Collection
    Knowledge Unlatched (KU)
    Language
    English
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    In this book, written between 1979 and 2020, Gilbert Lewis distills a lifetime of insights he garnered as a medical anthropologist. He asks: How do beliefs about illness in different societies influence their members’ ability to heal? Despite the advances of Western medicine, what can it learn from non-Western societies that consider sickness and curing to be as much a matter of social relationships as biological states? What problems arise when one set of therapeutic practices displaces another? Lewis compares Indigenous medical beliefs in New Guinea in 1968, when villagers were largely self-reliant, and in 1983, after they became dependent on Western medicine. He then widens his comparative scope by turning to West Africa and discussing a therapeutic community run by a prophet who heals the ill through confession and long-term residential care. Pandora’s Box began life with the prestigious Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures that Gilbert Lewis delivered in 1979 at the University of Rochester. He expanded them with materials gathered over the next forty years, completing the manuscript a few weeks before his death. Engagingly written, this book will inspire anthropologists, medical professionals, students, and curious readers to look with new eyes at current crises in world health.
    URI
    https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/48466
    Keywords
    Biography & Autobiography
    ISBN
    9781912808366
    Publisher
    HAU Books
    Publisher website
    https://haubooks.org/
    Publication date and place
    2021
    Grantor
    • Knowledge Unlatched
    Imprint
    HAU Books
    Classification
    Biography: general
    Rights
    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode
    • Harvested from KU

    Browse

    All of OAPENSubjectsPublishersLanguagesCollections

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Export

    Repository metadata
    Logo Oapen
    • For Librarians
    • For Publishers
    • For Researchers
    • Funders
    • Resources
    • OAPEN

    Newsletter

    • Subscribe to our newsletter
    • view our news archive

    Follow us on

    License

    • If not noted otherwise all contents are available under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

    Credits

    • logo EU
    • This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 683680, 810640, 871069 and 964352.

    OAPEN is based in the Netherlands, with its registered office in the National Library in The Hague.

    Director: Niels Stern

    Address:
    OAPEN Foundation
    Prins Willem-Alexanderhof 5
    2595 BE The Hague
    Postal address:
    OAPEN Foundation
    P.O. Box 90407
    2509 LK The Hague

    Websites:
    OAPEN Home: www.oapen.org
    OAPEN Library: library.oapen.org
    DOAB: www.doabooks.org

     

     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Differen formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    A logged-in user can export up to 15000 items. If you're not logged in, you can export no more than 500 items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.