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The Periphery’s Significance?
Nonetheless, medical anthropology remains positioned well to contribute to general anthropology: Its focus – health (and things related) – intrinsically lends itself to intradisciplinary collaboration. It has inherent interdisciplinary ramifications, too, as seen in work undertaken toward such goals as: improving life for people with chronic diseases, bettering palliative care and our handling of death, increasing our understanding of (and ability to address) health inequities related to structural racism, and helping us deal ethically with biotechnology.
George Marcus has highlighted medical anthropology’s interdisciplinary appeal as well. Calling it “one of the most energetic and successful of the established subfields” (2005, p. 681), he argues that, today in anthropology, “newer topical arenas and theoretical concerns are developed through interdisciplinary discussions… not through studied debates and discussions around products of anthropological research among the community of anthropologists itself” (p. 675). Marcus further contends that medical anthropology enjoys “derived prestige in anthropology by dint of this [interdisciplinary] participation” (p. 681).