Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1 (1), “The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology” by Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Margaret Lock (1987)

In this article, the authors advocate for the idea that the body is an important vehicle for understanding the philosophical underpinnings of the discipline of anthropology as well as substantive work in medical anthropology specifically.

American Ethnologist 15 (2), “Conjugated Oppression: Class and Ethnicity among Guaymi and Kuna Banana Plantation Workers” by Philippe Bourgois (1988)

In this paper, Bourgois explores the relationship between class and ethnicity—and, more broadly, between ideology and material reality—by comparing the integration of two groups of workers into the labor force of a Central America banana plantation.

An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology by Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc Wacquant (1992)

This overview of social theorist Pierre Bourdieu’s imaginative and provocative work interprets its logic and details the thematic and methodological principles that underlie his ideas.

The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception by Michel Foucault, trans. by A. M. Sheridan Smith (1994)

In presenting the emergence of la clinique, or the teaching hospital, as a medical institution, this book identifies and describes the concept of le regard médical (“the medical gaze”), which prioritizes objective measures over subjective ones.