Commentary analyzes state-physician interactions in East Asia, suggesting a nuanced view of their roles.
Anthropologists studying biomedicine have often analyzed the profession as a disciplinary arm of the state. This approach risks misrecognizing the complexity of state-physician-society relations, and the political agency of doctors. In this commentary, I analyze contributions of the articles in this special issue on East Asia in the context of other work on medicine and state power.
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Claire Wendland (2026) studied this question.
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