Shirley Lindenbaum is Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York and author of Kuru Sorcery (1979). Margaret Lock is Professor of Medical Anthopology at McGill University and author of East Asian Medicine in Urban Japan (California, 1980).

• PrefacePart OneThe Cultural Construction of ChildbirthIntroduction to Part One1 Traditional Birth Attendants in Rural North India: TheSocial Organization of ChildbearingRoger Jeffery and Patricia M. Jeffery2 Analysis of a Dialogue on Risks in Childbirth:Clinicians, Epidemiologists, and Inuit WomenPatricia A. Kaufert and John O'Neil3 Accounting for AmniocentesisRayna RappPart TwoThe Production of Medical KnowledgeIntroduction to Part Two4 "Learning Medicine": The Constructing of MedicalKnowledge at Harvard Medical SchoolByron J. Good andMary-Jo DelVecchio Good5 A Description of How Ideology Shapes Knowledge of aMental Disorder (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder)Allan Young6 The Shape of Action: Practice in Public PsychiatryLorna Amarasingham RhodesPart ThreeContested Knowledge and Modes of UnderstandingIntroduction to Part Three7 Lay Medical Knowledge in an African ContextTola Olu Pearce8 Biomedical Psychiatry as an Object for a CriticalMedical AnthropologyHoracio Fabrega, Jr.9 Double Standards of Treatment EvaluationGilbert Lewis10 Risk: Anthropological and Epidemiological Narrativesof PreventionRonald FrankenbergPart FourConstructing the Illness ExperienceIntroduction to Part Four11 Identity, Disability, and Schizophrenia: The Problem ofChronicitySue E. Estroff12 Social Aspects of Chagas DiseaseRoberto Briceflo-LeonPart FiveBody Politics-Past and PresentIntroduction to Part Five13 The Diseased Heart of Africa: Medicine, Colonialism,and the Black BodyJean Comaroff14 The Politics of Mid-Life and Menopause: Ideologies forthe Second Sex in North America and JapanMargaret Lock15 The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies: Determinationsof Self in Immune System DiscourseDonna HarawayContributorsIndex