Questioning Misfortune
The Pragmatics of Uncertainty in Eastern Uganda
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Part of Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology
- Author: Susan Reynolds Whyte, University of Copenhagen
- Date Published: February 1998
- availability: Available
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521595582
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This study of adversity and its social causes in rural Uganda considers how people deal with life's uncertainties--sickness, suffering, marital problems, failure, and death. Divination may identify causes of misfortune, ranging from ancestors and spirits to sorcerers. Sufferers and their families will then try out a variety of remedial measures, including pharmaceuticals, sorcery substances, and sacrifices. But remedies often fail, and doubt and uncertainty persist. The peril of AIDS can also be understood in terms of the existing pattern of uncertainty.
Read more- Offers an unusually open-ended approach to the classical anthropological topic of misfortune, stressing uncertainty, ambiguity
- Inspired by American philospher John Dewey, it combines a pragmatic theory of knowledge with a cultural analysis of personhood
- Based on 25 years' fieldwork, tracing change, continuities in suffering and solutions - from impotence to AIDS, divination to pharmaceuticals
Awards
- Winner of the Amaury Talbot Prize 1997 for books on African Anthropology published during 1997
Reviews & endorsements
"...a fascinating study of the Ugandan Nyole people's experience with adversity. The discussion of AIDS alone makes Whyte's study mandatory reading for anyone interested in health issues in Africa." Mark Howard, Medical Anthropology Quarterly
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×Product details
- Date Published: February 1998
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521595582
- length: 274 pages
- dimensions: 229 x 152 x 15 mm
- weight: 0.37kg
- contains: 12 b/w illus. 1 colour illus.
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I. An Uncertain World:
1. Misfortune and uncertainty
2. The pursuit of health and prosperity
3. Going to ask
Part II. 'What You Cannot See': The Revelations of Spirits:
4. At home with the dead
5. The fertility of clanship
6. Little spirits and child survival
Part III. 'You Will Know Me': The Opacity of Humans:
7. Speaking of morality
8. Substances and secrecy
Part IV. The Pragmatics of Uncertainty:
9. More questions
10. Consequences. Notes
References
Index.
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