Anthropology and health law: between separations and enlistments

Abstract

This chapter interrogates the distinctive contributions of anthropology to health law as an academic field. I first delineate which and whose anthropology I am referring to, highlighting that there are different forms of anthropology. The chapter then explores the possibilities and limits of a mutual influence between health law and anthropology. I ask whether a genuine exchange is possible, beyond these two straw men: the enlistments of ethnographic data by health lawyers, and health law being an empirical object of study for anthropologists. The chapter does not provide a comprehensive review of impactful anthropological interventions on health law. Instead, it focuses on one exemplar anthropological idea, the category of the gift, following its journey within the discursive exchange between anthropology and health law and policy. I will demonstrate how the gift has been at different times invented, borrowed and enlisted to effectuate change, further research, and sometimes, bring more justice. I close the chapter by suggesting not to exaggerate the gap between law and anthropology. Both face challenges in how they generate knowledge and move back and forth between normative and reflective registers. These common challenges and movements constitute an invitation for further study, not a barrier to interdisciplinary conversation. Studying how elements of anthropological knowledge travel to legal audiences offers an opportunity to reflect on interdisciplinarity more generally, and in turn, on the changing remit and shape of the academic field recognised as health law