Images of the body: Lay and biomedical views of the reproductive system in Britain and Brazil

Abstract

This thesis presents an anthropological study of ordinary people's views about the body in general and the reproductive system in particular, based on two case studies carried out in Britain and in Brazil. I discuss the meanings of lay and biomedical images of the body and identify the ways the researched groups reinterpret the biomedical view of the body anatomy and physiology. Through the analysis of ethnographic material on time, space and domestic organisation in four shantytown groups in Porto Alegre, Brazil and in three different groups in London, UK, I point out the dwelling peculiarities of the different groups and suggest there is a relationship between embodied experiences of time/space and knowledge of the reproductive system. These arguments lead to a more general phenomenologically theorised view of gendered and status-framed bodies, consequently situating this work in the interface of Medical Anthropology and a more general socio-cultural Anthropology.