Culture as Infrastructure: Dracula, Zombies, and Contemporary Healthcare
Date: Sunday, November 5, 2023 // 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM
As a Shankweiler Scholar, I am extremely blessed by God to be able to view medicine as a human endeavor. At this seminar, concepts of culture were discussed, leading to a shift of attention towards how certain ideas are conceptualized, formed, and practiced. In the seminar, it was discussed that different ideas and values of the world are what shape people’s actions and thoughts. Culture is what defines us as people and makes up cultural productions such as texts, literature, film, art, advertisements, and media services. When focusing on a topic as big as medicine, it leads to a tree filled with different cultures and branches of different fields like anthropology, sociology, biology, critical theory, religion, etc;
I learned that humanities probe underlying assumptions that are what document, process, and interpret human experiences. By being able to view things as empirical data, such as epidemiology and infectious diseases, one is able to understand through an ethical manner. Health humanities is an ever-changing definition that interrogates the relationship between health and the human experience, condition, and its cultures. When viewing healthcare as an infrastructure, such as the Lehigh Valley Health Network, medical anthropologists suggest drawing attention to how ideas are conceptualized and practiced. Amongst the public, health is always culturally shaped by dynamics among patients and doctors. When you think of Dracula, an image of a monster possibly pops up in your brain. In healthcare, Dracula is a representation of the “other” person. The “other” resembles an array, gray areas, the fear, and the in-between of good and bad. Dracula serves as a “pathogen” that thrives in conditions of modernity. Zombies and monsters are important because they have established the contemporary influences seen in healthcare. Due to all languages being arbitrary, when patients come in with fear they present anxiety, opening up avenues when doing anthropological research. In our FYS class, we are currently discussing difficult concepts of what it means to be considered the “other” in society. By being able to connect healthcare to a monster, I am able to understand why it’s important to be as inclusive as possible, so that no one feels excluded. Every patient deserves to be treated with equity and justice, regardless of their birthplace, religion, ethnicity, race, or persona. I never noticed that culture was so prominent in every step I took. Wherever I go, I am reminded of my culture and am able to make comparisons between other cultures. Formed by separation and coextension, ideas are constantly being worked through the context of my other ideas.
