Fifteen Years After - An Anthropological Field from a Diachronic Angle

The following contribution is the author’s provision of a theoretical model of ethnoepidemiology as proposed by R. Massé (2008) on her research findings. Critical ethno-epidemiology here is used as an attempt to combine the strengths of direct participant observation, while taking into consideration the totality of all socioeconomic and cultural conditions and practices. The following paper argues that embracing the ethno-epidemiological method as a strategy of analysis is particularly valuable when changes on a given field are taken into consideration. Within a research project the author of the paper had the occasion to revisit the field of research done for her doctoral dissertation (1998-2004). The recent fieldwork (done during the first months of 2015), was conducted to verify the "state of the art" of ethnomedical practices in the same region in northern Serbia, as well as the present condition of the forms a of the popular (eventually: alternative) medical practices. Starting with the initial hypothesis, based on the prevalence of the so called "popular/traditional healers" in the region and on the forms of practices, the paper’s aim is to compare the two sets of data. The goal is to present and to introduce a number of initial results and findings in a comparative manner with the intention to expose the observed changes which occurred in the meantime.