Wound Culture

This review offers new perspectives on the anthropology of injuries and wounds. It maps how theories, methods, and ethnographic sensibilities converge on wounds, on the act of wounding, and on the wounded as instructive objects. The review assesses how anthropologists understand social forces to cause wounds and how they accord wounds the power to generate meaning about sociality. Organized across two themes, “breach” and “repair,” the review tests concepts of embodiment across clinical boundaries, manifestations of harm, and formations of justice. It examines how anthropological thought connects to wound culture and assesses links between embodiment and politics that develop in the domains of critical theory and medical anthropology. Ultimately, it aims to shed light on the connections between body politics and ethnography and to ask what wounds might generate as an anthropological concern.