Doctoral Dissertation Research: Medical Tourism as Economic Recovery in Post-Crisis Argentina

博士论文研究：医疗旅游作为危机后阿根廷的经济复苏

• 批准号: 0719234
• 负责人: Peter Guarnaccia
• 金额: $ 0.71万
• 依托单位: Rutgers University New Brunswick
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-09-01 至 2009-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0719234&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Medical; Tourism

Graduate student Emily McDonald, supervised by Dr. Peter Guarnaccia, will undertake research on the transnational practice of medical tourism in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Driven by the rising cost of healthcare, medical tourists from the U.S., U.K. and other countries seek comparatively inexpensive surgeries packaged alongside leisure pursuits, such as tango lessons and wine tasting. In order to attract these foreign patients, doctors in Argentina are making connections with local tourist industries, establishing medical tourism as a key economic recovery strategy in response to the 2001 economic crisis. While becoming generalized as a health care practice, what remains largely unexamined is how medical tourism is emerging as a significant social practice embedded within the particular economic, political and historical contexts of Argentina.Tracing medical tourist networks through semi-structured interviews, participant observation and the collection of oral histories, the researcher will investigate medical tourism in Argentina. The project will address the following questions: 1) How are newly created medical tourism networks linking previously unconnected people, both within Argentina and transnationally? 2) In what ways does medical tourism, as an economic recovery strategy, inform our understanding of economic and political conditions within Argentina? 3) How are historically and culturally embedded concepts of race and nationality used to market medical tourism to Buenos Aires, and to differentiate Argentina from other medical tourism destinations? Understanding the dynamics of medical tourism will speak to mainstream debates around healthcare, and will advance understandings of transnationalism, economic recovery and the commodification of biomedicine. The research also will contribute to the education of a social scientist.

研究生艾米丽麦当劳，由彼得·瓜尔纳西亚博士监督，将在阿根廷布宜诺斯艾利斯进行医疗旅游的跨国实践研究。在医疗保健成本上升的推动下，来自美国的医疗游客，英国而其他国家则寻求相对便宜的外科手术，并将其与探戈课程和品酒等休闲活动相结合。为了吸引这些外国病人，阿根廷的医生正在与当地旅游业建立联系，将医疗旅游作为应对2001年经济危机的一项重要经济复苏战略。虽然成为一般的医疗保健实践，但在很大程度上尚未审查的是医疗旅游是如何成为嵌入在阿根廷特定的经济，政治和历史背景下的一个重要的社会实践。通过半结构化访谈，参与者观察和收集口述历史追踪医疗旅游网络，研究人员将调查阿根廷的医疗旅游。该项目将解决以下问题：1）新创建的医疗旅游网络如何将阿根廷境内和跨国之间以前没有联系的人联系起来？2)医疗旅游作为一种经济复苏战略，如何帮助我们了解阿根廷的经济和政治状况？3)历史和文化中的种族和国籍概念是如何被用来推销布宜诺斯艾利斯的医疗旅游，并将阿根廷与其他医疗旅游目的地区分开来的？了解医疗旅游的动态将有助于围绕医疗保健的主流辩论，并将促进对跨国主义，经济复苏和生物医学商品化的理解。这项研究也将有助于社会科学家的教育。