1.5.4 Anthropological Aspects of Health Promotion Research

Research Area 1. Social Science and Humanities Aspects of Human Capital  → Research Program 1.5 Anthropological Diversity and Adaptive Capacity in Human Populations

Project period

2020-2025

Context of Research Project within a Subject of Human Capital

The state of health of each individual and society as a whole is undoubtedly the most important component that ensures the normal functioning of communities and States. It is the foundation of human potential and its permanent development. The current features of health care systems functioning in the country and the world demonstrate a situation of imbalance in the use of the proposed conventional medicine by the individual and the community and the traditionally existing numerous variants of non-conventional medical systems, practices and methods. The preservation of health is based on a combining conventional and unconventional approaches, which can be traced both at the level of personal choice and at the level of state regulation. The study of the features of choice and regulation, as well as the specifics of the medical systems themselves, practices and methods lead to an understanding and assessment of what each option of prevention, treatment, restoration of health can give, how combining the opportunities offered by health systems and health-saving practices allows you to improve a healthy existence, creative longevity, active old age. All this serves to ensure the development of human potential

Project Aim

Studying the possibilities of various health systems and health-saving practices in the formation and development of human potential

Project Objectives:

1. Making a compilation of tools for a comprehensive anthropological study of the problem of cultural diversity, social sustainability and human potential in the context of global challenges; various forms of historical and cultural (including visual) heritage, ways of its representation and use in the construction of identities and actualization of cultural memory, including sacred and everyday practices, cultural and educational projects, virtual spaces and new media
2. Studying the transformation of healthcare and health-saving practices in the context of a pandemic and a return to normal life, in particular, on maternity care, on the practices and methods of traditional medicine and folk healing
3. Studying communities of spiritual healing, psychophysiological practices (e.g., meditation, yoga, etc.), palliative care and its improvement in order to identify their contribution to the development of human potential through the improvement of the psychophysiological state of the population. Research is planned to be carried out (if possible, considering the conditions of the pandemic), in contact with foreign colleagues

Key Findings

2020

Significant and the most acute topics of discussion have been identified: the threat of biopolitical totalitarianism, dehumanizing aspects of social distancing practices, tightening of biopower, medicalization of public life and everyday life. A deep connection between the pandemic, the acceleration of digitalization and the radicalization of current ethical and political discussions, including environmental ones, has been revealed

2021

The analysis of the role of obstetricians and gynecologists in the reform of maternity care in the post-Soviet period, informal relations of alternative midwives in maternity hospitals, the role of pre-school as new professionals in the perinatal field has been conducted. The main differences in the formation of Soviet oncology at the institutional conventional (epistemological) levels have been revealed, the structural relationship between modern and Soviet/post-Soviet practices of care for the seriously ill and dying has been indicated, the infrastructural dependence of the modern oncology system has been proved

Publications

1. Manichkin N. Aspects of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Public Discussion about Freedom and Transformations of Social Life (RU) // Siberian Historical Studies, No. 2, 2021, pp. 141-161

2. Ozhiganova A. Doula's Work, Public and Intimate: Professional Care, Self-organization and Activism // Monitoring of public opinion: economic and social changes. 2021 No. 3, pp. 200-225.

3. Mokhov S. Infrastructure of Soviet Oncology: Between Archaic and Modern (RU) // Siberian historical research. 2021 No. 2 pp. 120-140.

Conferences

XIV Congress of Anthropologists and Ethnologists of Russia (Tomsk, Russia 6-9 July 2021):
Kharitonova V. Problems of Vaccination During a Pandemic: Politics, Medicine, Culture (RU) / Section 52 Medical Anthropology: Traditional Problems and New Challenges