article
Discourse, power, and the diagnosis of weakness: encountering practitioners in Bangladesh
Medical anthropology quarterly, n.s. • 11 (3) • Published In 1997 • Pages: 352-374
By: Wilce, James MacLynn.
Abstract
This is a detailed and sometimes theoretical article on the author's experiences as a 'patient' of nonbiomedical practitioners, and an examination of Bangladeshis' encounters with herbalists, exorcists, and diviners which reveal the interactive means by which the diagnostic concept of DURBALATA (weakness ) is constructed in the society. In the cases presented, facing power in the person of the practitioner means losing face.The author argues that '…discursive phenomena above and below the lexical level are responsible. The phenomena described -- (1) interruption or dismissal of the patient's words by practitioners and others present during the clinical encounter, (2) divinatory routines that assign the DURBALATA label to women, and (3) one patient's use of 'creaky' voice quality in a strictly popular sector' (domestic) encounter -- are nonreferential but socially significant semiotic processes that operate, for the most part, beneath the level of discursive awareness. These encounters and their outcomes have more to do with social reproduction than with any unambiguously effective therapeutic outcome' ( p.352).
- HRAF PubDate
- 2002
- Region
- Asia
- Sub Region
- South Asia
- Document Type
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator Type
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- Analyst
- John Beierle ; 2000
- Field Date
- ca. 1991-1992
- Coverage Date
- ca. 1991-1992
- Coverage Place
- Matlab village, Bangladesh
- Notes
- James M. Wilce
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 370-374)
- LCCN
- 84643999
- LCSH
- Bengalis