Medicine and the Politics of Knowledge situates South Africa — including its history of stances and political formations around HIV/AIDS—in the broader context of questions relating to science, medicine, human experimentation, and structural violence, all of which shape the cases in the book. Putting South Africa in the context of other cases of contention and contestation about science and medicine in India, Latin America and China helps us to understand the particular history of the South African case itself.

Conceived in response to the urgency of bioethical debates in medical anthropology, this ethnographic collection touches the borders of anthropology, philosophy, and public health. At a time in world history where medicine and medical practice is deeply contested in the everyday as well as in juridical terms, this book makes an essential contribution to global debates about tradition, about science, and about the politics of knowledge production.

Contributors: Christopher J Colvin, Judith B Farquhar, Diana Gibson, Donna Goldstein, Oliver Human, Fritha Langerman, Susan Levine, Helen Macdonald, Estelle Oosthuysen