Social Sensations of Symptoms
Embodied Socialities of HIV and Trauma in Uganda
in Anthropology in ActionSearch for other papers by Lotte Meinert in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Susan Reynolds Whyte in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
All currencies in US Dollar
Abstract
The interpretation of sensations and the recognition of symptoms of a sickness, as well as the movement to seek treatment, have long been recognised in medical anthropology as inherently social processes. Based on cases of HIV and trauma (PTSD) in Uganda, we show that even the first signs and sensations of sickness can be radically social. The sensing body can be a ‘social body’ – a family, a couple, a network – a unit that transcends the individual body. In this article, we focus on four aspects of the sociality of sensations and symptoms: mode of transmission, the shared experience of sensations/symptoms, differential recognition of symptoms, and the embodied sociality of treatment.
Contributor Notes
Lotte Meinert is Professor MSO at the Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University, Denmark. She has carried out fieldwork and worked in Uganda for a total of seven and a half years since 1993 on topics related to health, education and human security. Her publications include the monograph Hopes in Friction: Schooling, Health and Everyday Life in Uganda (IAP, 2009), as well as the co-edited anthology Time Objectified: Ethnographies of Global Youth (Temple University Press, 2014). E-mail: lotte.meinert@cas.au.dk
Susan Reynolds Whyte is Professor at the Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, and carries out research in East Africa on social efforts to secure well-being in the face of poverty, disease, conflict and rapid change. Her most recent edited volume is Second Chances: Surviving AIDS in Uganda (Duke University Press, 2014). E-mail: Susan.Reynolds.Whyte@anthro.ku.dk