Towards a Distinctive Medical Anthropology in the Balkans

The Forum for Medical Anthropology is founded on the recognition that the Balkans—and specifically the region of the former Yugoslavia—holds a unique position in the global landscape of medical anthropology. Our mission is to advance the region’s study and critical engagement with health, medicine, and care, emphasizing the interplay between historical legacies, socio-political transformations, and contemporary challenges.

Early on, Balkan medical anthropology was influenced by the legacy of social medicine, the idea of universal, accessible healthcare, a staple of the socialist period spanning fifty years, which emphasized health as a fundamental social right. This approach prioritized accessible care for all, especially for the, then-dominant, rural populations in poor socioeconomic conditions. Medical anthropology in the Balkans has developed in response to these transformations, adapting to the shifting socio-political landscape and resisting neo-colonial frameworks, instead focusing on the interconnectedness of cultural, economic, and political contexts in shaping healthcare access and individual well-being. Localization of medical anthropology in the Balkan region offers unique insights into contemporary health equity challenges, particularly as societies worldwide grapple with globalization and the privatization of healthcare. While biomedicine has often been critiqued for its hegemonic role, which critique sometimes seemed over-simplified and politicized, local perspectives have always revealed a far more complex reality, where policies and practices have remained diverse and context-dependent.

Our Foundations: Medical Anthropology at Home

While Western scholarship labeled this work as “anthropology at home,” we recognize that our engagement with local contexts provides a distinctive and necessary perspective on global health issues. The field emerged from traditions rooted in volkskunde and voelkerkunde, but in recent years, it has been increasingly acknowledged as a distinct anthropological practice that critically examines the transformations of healthcare systems from within.

With the fall of socialism, the region saw rapid privatization, increasing healthcare inequalities, and the diversification of medical practices. Anthropologists turned their focus to tensions between traditional healing systems and modern biomedicine, as well as the broader impacts of economic disparities on health outcomes. While drawing from Western theoretical frameworks, Balkan medical anthropology has retained its unique character by emphasizing accessibility, equity, and the cultural dimensions of health-seeking behaviors.

As the region strenuously navigates its post-socialist reality, the Balkans offer a valuable lens for understanding global issues such as the commercialization of health and the marginalization of vulnerable populations. Even though the concepts of vulnerability, vulnerable communities and vulnerable populations have been constantly defined and redefined in anthropology in general and medical anthropology in particular, the Balkan past reality of rather small, connected (rural) communities, additionally perceived the vulnerable not as the markedly defined Other, but as those in need of care and assistance. Furthermore, revisiting region-specific insights—particularly those rooted in past experiences with accessible healthcare—can help us better understand contemporary health equity challenges in today’s pluralistic medical markets.

Reflexivity is central to this endeavor. As anthropologists working within the Balkans, we are acutely aware of how our positionality shapes our scholarship. Engaging in anthropology at home means navigating the dual role of insider and analyst, balancing intimate cultural knowledge with critical distance. Our collective histories—shaped by the socialist vision of equality and its subsequent unraveling—continue to inform our analyses of healthcare systems today.

The Balkans’ position as a key point on Europe’s main migrant route further underscores the urgency of addressing health equity. Mainstream policies often fail to account for localized realities, making equitable healthcare increasingly unattainable. By examining how global policies manifest in local practices, we can better understand the fractures within these systems and the broader implications for health justice in an interconnected world.

Key Commitments of the Forum

1. Critical Engagement with Health Equity

We acknowledge that the post-socialist transition has led to healthcare privatization, increasing inequalities, and a pluralization of medical practices. Through research and advocacy, we aim to highlight and address these inequities, with particular attention to marginalized communities.

2. The Legacy of Social Medicine

The former Yugoslavia’s commitment to universal, accessible healthcare provides an important historical foundation for our work. We strive to reintegrate and critically examine the principles of social medicine in contemporary health debates, challenging the dominance of market-driven healthcare models.

3. Decolonizing Medical Anthropology

We reject neo-colonial frameworks that marginalize non-Western knowledge systems. Instead, we prioritize region-specific approaches that recognize the cultural, economic, and political dimensions of health and healing in the Balkans.

4. Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Research

We foster collaboration across disciplines, bringing together medical anthropologists, sociologists, historians, public health scholars, and practitioners to create a holistic understanding of health and medicine in the region.

5. Inclusive, Engaged and Collaborative Education

We foster joint efforts in collaborative education at the university level, but also recognize the importance of creating open-source inclusive, and engaged educational platforms aimed at active public participation and engagement.

6. Reflexivity and Positionality

As scholars working in our own societies, we acknowledge the dual role of being both insiders and analysts. We commit to a reflexive anthropology that critically examines how our own histories and social positions influence our work.

7. Addressing Global Health Challenges through a Balkan Lens

The Balkans’ position at the margins of Europe, as well as its centrality in contemporary migration routes, makes it a crucial site for examining health justice. We seek to contribute to global discussions on health equity by foregrounding the lived experiences of those most affected by structural inequalities.

A Call to Action

The Forum for Medical Anthropology invites scholars, practitioners, and activists to join us in building a critical and engaged medical anthropology that is deeply rooted in the Balkans but globally relevant. By embracing our shared histories and critically engaging with the present, we strive to shape a future where health justice is not an ideal but a reality.

Together, we reaffirm our commitment to medical anthropology as a discipline that does not merely study health and illness but actively contributes to shaping more equitable healthcare systems and policies.