In “The Mindful Body,” Scheper-Hughes and Lock critically examine the Cartesian dualism that separates mind from body, spirit from matter, and real (i.e., visible, palpable) from unreal. They begin with the assumption of the body as “simultaneously a physical and symbolic artifact that is both naturally and culturally produced, and as securely anchored in a particular historical moment” (6). They critique various concepts that have been privileged in Western thinking for centuries and that have determined the ways in which the body has been perceived in scientific biomedicine and anthropology. The article is both descriptive and diagnostic in that it’s goal is both the definition of an important domain for anthropological inquiry and an initial search for appropriate concepts and analytic tools. A particularly successful heuristic device for conceptualizing cultural understandings of the constituent parts of the body (mind, matter, psyche, soul and self) is what the authors refer to as “the three bodies”: the individual body, the social body and the body politic. Toward this end, the authors provide a multiplicity of cross-cultural examples of the interaction among mind/body and the individual, social and body politic in the production and expression of health and illness.

Ultimately, the authors’ objective in this article is to make a case for medical anthropology as intellectual savior, just waiting to release biomedicine from its Cartesian grip, and lead health practitioners toward a new epistemology and metaphysics of what the authors term the “mindful body,” i.e., the ways in which the mind speaks through the body and the ways in which society is inscribed on the canvas of human flesh. The authors argue that although most clinical practitioners today know that mind and body are inseparable in the experiences of sickness, suffering, and healing; they just lack the vocabulary and concepts to address the mindful body. While this is a legitimate and largely convincing argument, it is easy to imagine why this approach might arouse anger and defensiveness within the scientific community.

The analysis in this article is critical for psychological and symbolic anthropology because it questions the underlying assumptions of epistemology of Western biomedicine. This has been an important area of recent research in medical anthropology. Anthropologists argue that our everyday ways of thinking are learned from culture. For example, cognitive anthropologist, Bradd Shore (1995) refers to these ways of thinking as “cultural models.” The mind-body dualism described by Scheper-Hughes and Lock in this article -one that they tediously stress is so characteristic of biomedical thinking - is a good example of such a cultural model. There is an unstated assumption that social and psychological stresses are not, in fact, “real.” This is an important epistemological question for critical medical anthropology as one of the objectives of the discipline is to attempt to understand and describe the hidden cultural models of biomedical thinking.

One of the more interesting segments of the article – and particularly relevant to this course – is the discussion of emotions, which anthropologists have historically studied from a distance (in ritualized settings such as the stylized mourning of the Basques, or the Balinese cock fight) and typically reduced to a discourse on innate drives, impulses and instincts. Is any expression of human emotion ever free of cultural shaping/meaning? Do we follow Geertz’ (1973) extremist reasoning that “without culture, we simply would not know how to feel”? The authors do not explicitly agree with Geertz although they borrow from a term from evolutionary theory to suggest that emotions may provide the "missing link" that bridges mind and body, individual, society and body politic. However, this statements only affirms what they have worked so hard to reject: that body and mind ARE separate in the first place.

Scheper-Hughes and Lock purport to be writing for three audiences (general anthropology, medical anthropology, and clinical medicine), and their critique of the mind/body dichotomy is heavily influenced by the medical anthropology literature and their combined experience teaching in medical schools. The result is a somewhat partial and fragmentary personal itinerary through paths of inquiry the authors deem most fruitful for theory building and further research in anthropology generally.

Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures.New York: Basic Books.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Lock, Margaret. 1987. The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology.Medical Anthropology Quarterly, New Series 1(1):6-41.

Shore, Bradd. 1995. Culture in Mind: Cognition, Culture, and the Problem of Meaning. Oxford University Press.