In this anthropological study of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis/Parkinsonism-Dementia Complex (ALS/PDC) in Guam, Keck intertwines three separate perspectives of history, medicine and anthropology. This work is an important contribution to the decolonizing of biomedical research and argues that neurological diseases can be better understood if they are also seen as social and cultural phenomena. With sound ethnography linked to current controversial debates in neurology, Keck breaks new ground; her insights add to the hitherto few anthropological studies of neurodegenerative diseases in non-Western societies.

• Author(s): Verna Keck
• Publisher: University of Guam Press (2011)
• Imprint: MARC Publications
• ISBN-13: 978-1-935198-01-7
• Hardcover: 241 pages
• Price: $40

Verena Keck is Privatdozent(lecturer) in Anthropology at the University of Frankfurt at Main. She has carried out field research among the Yupno people in Papua New Guinea; in Guam, Western Pacific; and in Bali, Indonesia. Her research interests are in medical anthropology, identity and aging, and contemporary issues in Pacific cultures. She also authored Social Discord and Bodily Disorders: Healing among the Yupno of Papua New Guinea (Durham 2005), edited Common Worlds and Single Lives: Constituting Knowledge in Pacific Societies (1998) and has published numerous articles in international journals. Distributed by the Richard F. Taitano Micronesia Area Research Center

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