Broken Limbs, Broken Lives

Shahaduz Zaman carried out anthropological fieldwork in an orthopedic ward in a large government teaching hospital of Bangladesh. The research shows that in contrast to the assumed universalism in biomedicine, biomedical practice is in fact a product of particular social conditions, and the hospital in which it takes place reflects the features of the society in which it is embedded. A shocking and humorous study, this work shows how medical practice takes shape in an under-staffed, under-resourced and under-financed hospital in a low-income country characterized by daily physical and structural violence.

Shahaduz Zaman is a medical doctor, medical anthropologist, and literary writer.