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At the same time that Testing Women.... contributesto anthropological discourses on the cultural construc-
tions of science and technology, it reveals some of theprocesses through which genetic literacy in the US isproduced and how race, culture and class are implicated
in its production. Rapp shows that reproductionprovides a powerful lens for illuminating processesinvolved in the perpetuation of social stratification.Through this analysis of the narrative accounts of those
whose lives are affected by fetal diagnosis throughamniocentesis, we learn about this technology’s trueimpact on those who participate in its development and
deployment, those who use and refuse it, and, perhaps,most importantly, on our own cultural conceptions of
who we are and will become.
C.H. BrownerDeptartment. of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences,Center for Culture and Health, University of California,
Los Angeles, CA 90024-1759, USAJill Shapira
Deptartment. of Anthropology, Center for Culture and
Health, University of California, Los Angeles,CA 90024-1759, USA
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Therapeutic landscapes the dynamic between place and
wellness
Allison Williams (Ed.); University Press of America,New York, 1999, pp. 249, price $34.50 (paper)
One of the most original recent developments inhealth geography has been that concerning research on
therapeutic landscapes. Ideas about therapeutic land-scapes are of special interest for several reasons. First,they have the potential to improve our understanding of
how and why aspects of places are important for humanhealth, as well as the characteristics of individual people.Work on therapeutic landscapes has, therefore, made asignificant contribution to research concerning the role
of place in health variation, which has been animportant theme in health geography in the 1990s.Secondly, unlike much ‘health’ research, which in
fact focuses on illness and death, much of theemphasis in studies of therapeutic landscapes is on morepositive aspects of health such as wellness and
well-being. The field is one which offers particularlyrich territory for exploration at the interface betweengeography and psychology and mental health, which issomewhat underdeveloped compared with the large
amount of work relating to physical diseases andthe physical and material dimensions of risks tohealth.
For these reasons, the collection edited by Williams isa welcome addition to the literature. The book bringstogether a collection of papers on therapeutic land-
scapes, including some previously published as journalarticles. By collating ten different contributions byvarious authors the book performs a particularly useful
function in illustrating various theoretical perspectiveson therapeutic landscapes, illustrating these with diverseexamples including studies of wildernesses and naturereserves to residential communities, health care spaces
and urban street life. The organization of thesecontributions, discussed by Williams in her introduction
to the book emphasises in particular three aspects ofwork in this field. A group of papers (including work byBell, Palka, Thurber and Malinowski) explores thehealing and restorative dimensions of therapeutic land-
scapes, with an interesting predominance of studies ofnatural landscapes. The second group of papers (byGeores and Gesler, Parr, Bridgeman) concentrates our
attention particularly on the perspectives on therapeuticlandscapes from the viewpoint of marginalized groups insociety. These highlight the variable ways that those in
different social positions respond to their environment,and also the processes by which dominant social groupsoften impose on others their own sense of what istherapeutic, thereby sometimes exacerbating social
exclusion of less powerful groups. In the last section ofthe book, the metaphoric and symbolic dimensions oftherapeutic landscapes are explored in papers by Kearns
and Barnett, Scapacci and Mohan which also bring outthe differences between the functions of certain conceptsof therapeutic landscapes and local places in the
promulgation of political ideology relating to healthand healthcare.Overall, therefore, the book is interesting for the way
that it illustrates the ‘dark’ side of the application ofideas concerning therapeutic landscapes, involvingprocesses of political manipulation and social exclusion,as well as the potential to inform positive and beneficial
health outcomes.
Sarah Curtis
Deptartment of Geography,Queen Mary and Westfield College,
University of London,Mile End Road London E1 4NS, UK
E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Curtis).
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Book reviews / Social Science & Medicine 53 (2001) 147–149 149