ILLNESS AND MEDICATION THROUGH THE EYES OF THE ROMA PEOPLE IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

This paper concentrates upon Roma ways of dealing with illness from the perspective of social anthropology. Social science defines illness primarily as an opposite to the state of health. As such, it is to great extend a subjective and relative phenomenon, determined most of all by the native culture. Ethno medicine, a sub-field of social anthropology, offers for these purposes so called Explanatory model of Arthur Kleinman [9]. The author does not offer practical solutions in her paper. Rather, she points to differences and similarities in acting and thinking about illness by two different cultures, relativity of its validity in mutual interaction, as well as stereotypes that burden both teams of actors.