Dissertation Research: The Reconstruction and Revitalization of Tahitian Healing

该奖项支持来自南卫理公会大学的文化人类学家的论文研究，研究发展中国家的人们如何选择医疗方法。大多数发展中社会提供两种保健服务选择，即传统治疗和生物医学治疗。该项目将在大溪地的两个地点——帕皮提（城市中心）和一个农村——对人们进行观察和采访。利用参与观察和密集访谈的民族志技术，以及对每个地区的100户家庭进行普查抽样，并对每个地点的30户家庭进行“发病率调查”，每3周访问一次，记录疾病和治疗情况，该项目将建立一个“文化模型”，说明人们如何为各种疾病选择医疗方法；描述塔希提传统的治疗系统，因为它正在发展融入现代生物医学。学生将测试这样的假设，即社会经济地位和城乡位置都不能决定医疗选择，但宗教信仰和民族主义文化情感会使人们倾向于传统医学。这项研究很重要，因为它将促进我们对传统医学治疗系统的理解，并解释其在面对替代生物医学系统时的持久性和适应性。在世界上大多数国家，替代医疗系统之间的这种紧张关系是生活中的一个事实，我们对人们如何以及为什么选择每种特定疾病发作的理解的增加，将对卫生计划人员有价值。此外，这项研究增加了社会对世界这一重要地区的专业知识。

This award supports the dissertation research of a cultural anthropologist from Southern Methodist University, studying how people in the developing world select medical treatments. Most developing societies afford two ranges of choices for health services, traditional healing and biomedical treatment. The project will observe and interview people in two Tahitian locations, Papeete (an urban center) and a rural village. Using ethnographic techniques of participant observation and intensive interviews, as well as a census-sample of 100 households in each area, and a `morbidity survey` of 30 households in each location who will be visited every 3 weeks to record cases of illness and treatment, the project will make a `cultural model` of how people select medical treatments for various illnesses; describe the Tahitian traditional healing system as it is evolving to incorporate modern biomedicine. The student will test hypotheses that neither socioeconomic status nor urban-rural location govern medical treatment choice, but that religiosity and nationalist cultural feelings will predispose people towards traditional medicine. This research is important because it will advance our understanding of a system of traditional medical treatment and explain its persistence and adaptation in the face of the alternative biomedical system. Such tension between alternative medical systems is a fact of life in most countries of the world, and increases in our understanding of how and why people choose each for specific illness episodes will be valuable for health planners. In addition this research increases or society's expertise about this important region of the world.