This course introduces recent theoretical perspectives and ethnographic work which explore how the political and medical authorities as well as the lay people, discuss the effects of globalization and global encounters on health inequalities, and how the global and local health policies address these inequalities. It covers such topics as the role of global health institutions in addressing the health inequalities, tensions between states? priorities and global impositions in defining and applying health policies, competition between biomedicine and alternative medical systems, local interpretations of global medical technologies and local conceptualizations of global epidemics. The course also includes nuanced approaches to the global and local ethical issues around the body, gender, life, illness, birth, death and pharmaceutical industry