Anthropology of the Middle East

Notes on Contributors

In a region in which everyday life is under different kinds of threat, issues related to health are of prime importance. Preserving life, which is the least human right to be respected, is the last resort, yet it seems human life is an insignificant matter. For example, in everyday discourse in Tehran, we o en hear, “Human life doesn’t count.” Within this local world view the opposite can also be observed: an obsessive preoccupation with aesthetic aspects of the human body (see AME, vol. 1, no. 1). In between lies all that can be studied by medical anthropologists.

In this article I demonstrate that issues surrounding excrement in Iraq intersect sites where power and order, the state and its absence, and everyday moral order and its erasure become painfully evident. In the first piece of ethnography, I recount daily walks taken with an informant through the war-torn streets of Basra (Iraq), where in some places human excrement fills the streets. The second part of the article pursues the same theme in the context of a prison, where the lack of toilet facilities becomes a physical and symbolic means of torture.

Analysis of my ethnographic data on medical popular culture in tribal south-west Iran, mostly from 1965 to 1983, suggests several traditional explanatory models and philosophical tenets that guide approaches to health issues. Empirical knowledge of natural processes motivates people to observe their bodily requirements. The belief in God's autocratic power is tempered with God's purported wish that people use their abilities to take responsibility for their health, complicating the notion of 'fate'. The various models provide health management choices. Traditionally, patients and healers shared these models, acting on the same cosmological assumptions.

The main purpose of this article is to describe traditional breastfeeding practices among the pastoral tribes in the Middle East. It also examines beliefs and attitudes towards breastfeeding and related issues, including pregnancy, infections of the breast nipple, sources of milk, 'bad milk' syndrome and breastfeeding as a contraceptive method. The most significant findings are that mothers relate breastfeeding to their physical and psychological state. There are also symbolic and emotional relationships between human babies and the colostrum of animals. A survey of medicinal cures for problems related to breastfeeding reveals that these cures are based on substances found in the desert pastoral environment.

Anthropological field research in Iran, mainly in the village of Aliabad and in nearby Shiraz in south-west Iran, has documented radical social, cultural, religious and economic change over the last 28 years. Increasing emphasis on the nuclear rather than the extended family and pressures for geographic and social mobility have profoundly influenced the lives of the elderly. The traditional family system of support for elders - with regard to emotional and social needs, as well as financial assistance and physical care - is breaking down. Social scientists, social workers and health personnel must focus on adequately addressing the needs and concerns of the Iranian elderly in the twenty-first century and on developing alternative systems to deal with key elderly issues of health, well-being and social incorporation.

The rate of consanguineous marriage in Kuwait is considered to be high. Several research studies have shown that marriage among relatives is one of the major factors leading to health problems because it increases homozygosis. This article deals with both cultural and physical aspects by examining the health consequences of consanguineous marriages in Kuwait. Variables such as reproductive wastage, health problems in the offspring and infant mortality are included and measured in relation to other socio-cultural variables. Cultural variables such as the respondents' roots (Bedouin and non-Bedouin) and beliefs (Muslim Sunni and Muslim Shi'a) are also examined. The results show that there is no significant association between consanguineous and non-consanguineous marriages in the rate of abortion or the mortality of infants and children up to five years old. Finally, the data reveal significant differences between the genetic and genetic-environmental diseases in consanguineous couples' offspring and those of non-consanguineous couples. Since some of these findings contradict those of other studies, more research is needed.

This article presents an account of a Qashqa'i health worker's upbringing, education and training, noting in particular his transition from life in a traditional nomadic family through completion of a formal education. The health worker, Jamal, describes certain problems of modernity and the personal conflict he faces as someone who loves his culture but also wants to see improvements in the health status of his people. Written by a Qashqa'i author, who brings his own sensitivity and cultural knowledge to the text, the article makes some recommendations about the training and integration of rural health workers in Iran.

BOOKS

Rūstā’ī, Moh.sen (1382/2003–2004), Tārīkh-e t.ebb va t.ebābat dar Irān (az ‘ahd-e qājār tā pāyān-e ‘as.r-e Rez.ā Shāh) be ravāyat-e asnād [History of Medicine and Medical Practice in Iran (from the Qajar Epoch until the End of Rez. ā Shāh’s Age) According to the Narrative of Official Documents] (Tehran: Sāzmān-e asnād va ketābkhāne-ye Mellī-ye Jomhūrī-ye Islāmī-ye Irān). Vol. 1, pages ccclxi + 660. Vol. 2, pages xv + 911.

Naficy, Abutorab (2000), The Pulse of Life at the Crossroad of the Traditional and Modern Medicine of Iran [Nabz-e hayat dar gozar-e tibb-e sonnati va tibb-e nuvin Iran]: Biographical and Medical Writings of Dr Abutorab Naficy (Isfahan, Iran: Naqsh-e Khurshid Publication). 459 pages + 6 pages of pictures at the end.

Al-Sabah, Altaf Salem Al-Ali (2006), Ibjad – Ornate Tent Dividers and Weavings of the Kuwait Desert (Kuwait: Al Sadu House). 85 pages, glossary of Arabic terms, black-and-white and colour photographs, index.

FILM

The first conference of the Union for Short Filmmakers of Islamic Countries (USFIC), 20–25 August 2007, Tehran, Iran

CONFERENCES

Congress for the Seventieth Year of Anthropology in Iran, 18–21 February 2007, Anthropological Research Centre for ICHO, Bahonar University, Kerman, Iran

Second International Congress of Biological and Cultural Anthropology, 26–28 October 2007, Monastir, Tunisia