Personhood and illness among the Kulina.
This article offers both a contribution to the ethnography of ethnomedicine among the Kulina Indians of western Amazonia--a region in which there has been little ethnomedical research--and an extended illustration of the value of the concept of "personhood" in the analysis of ethnomedical beliefs and practices. I argue that the current medical anthropological fixation on the Body is neither good ethnography nor productive theory, and I use the Kulina example to illustrate how the cultural dimensions of personhood provide a more satisfactory framework for the understanding of illness. Kulina conceptions of illness are closely linked to the substances and processes through which personhood is acquired, expressed, and transformed. I consider the two major categories of illness in Kulina ethnomedicine, and focus special attention on the more serious of these: potentially fatal illnesses that are linked to witchcraft and to the violations of prohibitions. I suggest how these illnesses serve as languages for the simultaneous negotiation of social issues and personhood.
Pollock
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Department of Anthropology, University at Buffalo, USA.
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D001938:Brazil; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007199:Indians, South American / Q000523:psychology*; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008519:Medicine, Traditional; D012649:Self Concept; D012803:Sick Role; D018599:Witchcraft