Desire,Envy and Punishment: A Matsigenka Emotion Schema in Illness Narratives and Folk Stories

Accumulating evidence suggests that folktales in some societies are characterized by a culturally constructed underlying emotional structure, or Cultural Emotion Schema. In this paper we argue that Matsigenka illness narratives and folk stories share an underlying emotion schema, in which death and suffering result from conflicts between strong-willed individuals prompting anger and aggression. Analysis of illness narratives collected by Izquierdo in the Matsigenka community of Kamisea in the Peruvian Amazon between 1996 and 1999 reveals a common pattern in which envy and frustration lead to the belief in sorcery as the main cause of illness and death. This pattern contrasts with the typical stories of a previous generation collected by the Johnsons among the Matsigenka of Shimaa and other Matsigenka researchers, where sorcery beliefs were virtually absent. Our argument is that important changes in ecology, community, politics, and religion have led to a systematic rise in feelings of envy and frustration, and that these have increased the likelihood that sorcery accusations will occur. We explore the likelihood that such beliefs increase as egalitarian peoples become more crowded into settlements where they are likely to experience greater inequality, more competition for resources and increased societal and personal stress.     

'What else do we Bengalis do?' Sorcery, overseas migration, and the new inequalities in Sylhet, Bangladesh

In Sylhet, Bangladesh, remittances sent home by sons and husbands working abroad have led to new inequalities conducive to the proliferation of sorcery accusations. In cases of illness, sorcery is often the preferred diagnosis. The virilocal rule of residence positions the son's wife as an outsider and, as such, she has been traditionally viewed as the prime suspect in cases of sorcery. This structural tension has been intensified by overseas migration as sons working abroad increase the isolation and vulnerability of their wives. Patients and their families do not passively act out structural contradictions but actively pursue a sorcery diagnosis. Through a detailed case study of one woman's struggle to come to terms with infertility, I show how a diagnosis of sorcery acts as a face-saving mechanism in situations of material inequality between kin.     

The embodiment of sorcery: Supernatural aggression,belief and envy in a remote Aboriginal community

Anthropologists have long attempted to come to grips with Indigenous Australian sorcery beliefs and especially with the idea that acts with no understandable efficacy bring about illness and death. In this ethnographic interpretation of sorcery beliefs in the remote community of Numbulwar, I follow those few who have attempted to find a link between these apparently harmless acts and real physiological consequences, arguing that the fear of sorcery that pervades Numbulwar contributes directly to the stress of daily life and indirectly to the premature morbidity and mortality of too many lives. Belief is posited as the mechanism whereby the human stress response is activated to a harmful extent, a process in which the projection of envious feelings may often be critical.     

Lack of interest by nonpregnant couples in population-based cystic fibrosis carrier screening.

We used signs and letters to offer free cystic fibrosis (CF) carrier screening to nonpregnant adults in stable relationships who visited numerous clinical and nonclinical sites in Nashville. A total of 179 individuals (<<1% of those eligible) elected to be tested. To understand this observation, we used questionnaires to assess individuals' attitudes about genetic testing in general and about CF carrier screening in particular (n=873). Participants expressed conflicting views about carrier screening. More than 90% of people thought that genetic testing should at least be available. Most respondents said that the views of their partners and physicians were important in their decision making, and most believed that these others favored genetic testing. Yet, more than two-thirds indicated that such factors as insurability, being "at risk," what they would need to learn, abortion, and religious beliefs were important in their decision making, opinions that mitigated against genetic testing. In particular, one-third feared that carriers would lose their health insurance, one-quarter said that they would have been more interested had they been able to provide DNA by buccal swab rather than by finger stick, and less than one-sixth believed that genetic testing was meddling in God's plan. In the face of both the low level of use of free CF carrier screening by nonpregnant couples when it was not offered in person by health-care professionals and the wide variety of concerns demonstrated, we believe that clinicians should not routinely offer carrier screening to nonpregnant individuals who do not have a family history of CF.     

A comparison of the illness beliefs of people with angina and their peers: a questionnaire study

Background  

What people believe about their illness may affect how they cope with it. It has been suggested that such beliefs stem from those commonly held within society . This study compared the beliefs held by people with angina, regarding causation and coping in angina, with the beliefs of their friends who do not suffer from angina.     

A Din of Whispers: The In-Group Manifestation of Sorcery in Rural Banyuwangi

In rural Banyuwangi, East Java, Indonesia, sorcery and the reprisals for it occur amongst neighbours, kin and acquaintances. When illness occurs following a dispute between these people, sorcery may be suspected. The people who identify and take action against the suspected sorcerer are usually the suspected sorcerer's own family members, neighbours or acquaintances. By describing an instance where malevolent magic occurs within rather than between social groups, I contribute to the documentation of instances of such in-group manifestations. I also analyse the implications of the fact that violence and suspicion, as much as solidarity and trust, may characterise relations among the people who are closest.     

Disgust sensitivity and the neurophysiology of left-right political orientations

Disgust has been described as the most primitive and central of emotions. Thus, it is not surprising that it shapes behaviors in a variety of organisms and in a variety of contexts--including homo sapien politics. People who believe they would be bothered by a range of hypothetical disgusting situations display an increased likelihood of displaying right-of-center rather than left-of-center political orientations. Given its primal nature and essential value in avoiding pathogens disgust likely has an effect even without registering in conscious beliefs. In this article, we demonstrate that individuals with marked involuntary physiological responses to disgusting images, such as of a man eating a large mouthful of writhing worms, are more likely to self-identify as conservative and, especially, to oppose gay marriage than are individuals with more muted physiological responses to the same images. This relationship holds even when controlling for the degree to which respondents believe themselves to be disgust sensitive and suggests that people's physiological predispositions help to shape their political orientations.     

WELLBEING,SCHIZOPHRENIA AND EXPERIENCE MACHINES

In the USA and England and Wales, involuntary treatment for mental illness is subject to the constraint that it must be necessary for the health or safety of the patient, if he poses no danger to others. I will argue against this necessary condition of administering treatment and propose that the category of individuals eligible for involuntary treatment should be extended. I begin by focusing on the common disorder of schizophrenia and proceed to demonstrate that it can be a considerable harm to a person's life without causing the person to be a danger to himself. I illuminate this claim by constructing a thought experiment concerning a person who slips on a banana peel and falls into a malfunctioning version of Robert Nozick's experience machine. I propose that the reasons why we should remove the person from the machine are the same reasons why we should administer involuntary treatment to individuals with schizophrenia. I rebut three objections to the analogy and conclude that if we believe that we have a duty to provide treatment for reasons relating to a person's wellbeing, it follows that we should reject the health or safety requirement and instead broaden the category of individuals who are eligible for involuntary treatment.     

Cognitive Apartheid: On the Manner in Which High School Students Understand Evolution without Believing in Evolution

High school science students are often unwilling to learn about evolution due to a perceived conflict with their religious beliefs. Other students are able to understand evolution despite the fact that they do not believe in evolution. According to Cobern (Sci Educ 80:579?C610, 1996), students can wall off that which is believed from that which is not believed in a process he called cognitive apartheid. A mixed-methods study was conducted to determine the extent to which understanding of evolution differed among high school Advanced Placement science students who did and did not believe in evolution. Two students who demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of evolution despite their admonition that they do not believe in evolution were then interviewed. Eight themes emerged from the interview that provide insight into the views of students learning of evolution despite the fact that they do not believe in evolution. Based on these themes, several implications for the teaching of evolution are presented.     

Constraints and heroes

A story, perhaps apocryphal, is told about the United States surgical team which pioneered the first artificial heart procedure. It is said that the team received a number of telephone calls from people around the country who, worried about the ailing heart recipient, offered to donate to him their own hearts. When the surgical team, justifiably curious, sent psychiatrists to examine these donors, they found to their surprise that many of the donors were rational, competent, sincere, and fully aware that as a consequence of donating their hearts they would die.... My concerns here will be threefold. First, I want to add some substance to the widely-held intuition that there is something morally objectionable about a physician participating in procedures which put even a willing subject at risk. In so doing, I want to explore the larger question of why such a puzzle arises -- why physicians, and many others, find it morally objectionable to help someone do something which all agree to be heroic. Finally, I will start by examining some ways of framing the issue, widely employed in medical ethics, which I believe are simply wrong. This sort of puzzle is much more interesting than proponents of these standard arguments would have us believe, and it illustrates some larger points about morality which are often overlooked.     

Gulf War Syndrome: A Reaction to Psychiatry’s Invasion of the Military?

Following the 1991 Gulf War, a number of soldiers who fought there began to complain of various symptoms and disorders, the collection of which came to be known as Gulf War syndrome (GWS). A debate has raged about the nature and cause of this illness, with many suggesting that it is a psychiatric condition. GWS continues to be a contested illness, yet there is no disputing that many Gulf veterans are ill. This article considers the way in which GWS sufferers understand their illness to be physical in nature and the way in which they negotiate and resist psychological theories of their illness. Based on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the United Kingdom, data for this article were collected mainly by in-depth, semistructured interviews with GWS sufferers, their family members, doctors, and scientists, as well as healthy Gulf veterans. A total of 93 informants were interviewed, including 67 UK Gulf veterans, most of whom were ill. The paper argues that despite the increasing presence of psychiatry in military discourse, GWS reveals the way that people are able to transform, negotiate and even negate its power and assumptions.     

Les fous morts brûlés. Cauchemar, fantasme et réalité de la médecine aliéniste (xix e-xx e siècles)

In the 19th century, there was much discussion about lunatic asylums. Since hydrotherapy was then a privileged cure for mental illness, there were stories about inmates who died literally fried in the so-called “continuous baths”, where they had been forgotten by neglectful members of staff. This paper aims to distinguish between truth and fantasy, through an analysis of patient testimonies, literature and medical discourse. The reader will discover that what was at the time considered fiction by many, just another dreadful story on madhouses, was in fact a reality, that some physicians such as Evariste Marandon de Montyel (1851–1908) tried to combat.     

Cultural Aspects of Health and Illness Behavior in Hospitals

Health care attitudes reflect the basic world view and values of a culture, such as how we relate to nature, other people, time, being, society versus community, children versus elders and independence versus dependence. Illness behavior determines who is vulnerable to illness and who agrees to become a patient—since only about one third of the ill will see a physician. Cultural values determine how one will behave as a patient and what it means to be ill and especially to be a hospital patient. They affect decisions about a patient''s treatment and who makes the decisions. Cultural differences create problems in communication, rapport, physical examination and treatment compliance and follow through. The special meaning of medicines and diet requires particular attention. The perception of physical pain and psychologic distress varies from culture to culture and affects the attitudes and effectiveness of care-givers as much as of patients. Religious beliefs and attitudes about death, which have many cultural variations, are especially relevant to hospital-based treatment. Linguistic and cultural interpreters can be essential; they are more available than realized, though there are pitfalls in their use. Finally, one must recognize that individual characteristics may outweigh the ethnic and that a good caring relationship can compensate for many cultural missteps.     

Withholding Age as Putative Deception in Mate Search Tactics

Mate choice is a process of negotiation in which individuals make decisions about whether or not to allow a relationship with a prospective mate to develop into a long-term relationship. In some cases, this process begins with opening bids between strangers. Although each individual may have a clearly perceived set of preferred options, frequency-dependent effects and constraints on available search time often mean that individuals have to settle for less than ideal partners. Age is a criterion that males use in judging the mate value of prospective female partners, because it correlates with fertility. In this paper, we analyze personal advertisements to show that women may decline to declare their age in order to appear younger than they really are. This allows them to be more demanding than they would otherwise be able to be. A comparison of trait profiles with those of women of known age suggests that individuals who disguise their ages are likely to be in the age range 35 to 50 years. Three alternative explanations for this can be suggested: such behavior might be an attempt to find a high-quality partner (1) before their reproductive opportunities are foreclosed by menopause, (2) to replace lost paternal investment, or (3) to reduce the burden on the children of caring for aging parents by obtaining companionship and assistance from a new partner.     

Primitivist medicine and capitalist anxieties in ayahuasca tourism Peru

Analysing healing practices at an ayahuasca tourism centre in Peru, this article illustrates how Shipibo practices of curing and sorcery have adapted to the demands of international clients searching for primitivist healing experiences. At the core of this adaption is the thorny issue of occult power and its relation to capital accumulation. Sorcery here does not serve clients but is manifest among healers working to capitalize on the guests’ primitivist rejections of modern life while operating in environments of economic scarcity and ambient poverty. Ayahuasca tourists do not request and generally do not believe in sorcery, but their very presence generates and negates the local moral economy of sorcery in novel ways. The article explores a paradoxical aspect of ayahuasca tourism wherein guests purge similar anxious desires for capital accumulation that healers achieve when curing them.     

A normative construction of Gulf War syndrome

In early 1992, U.S. troops returning from the Gulf War began reporting a variety of nonspecific symptoms such as fatigue, skin rash, headache, muscle and joint pain, and loss of memory.These reports marked the beginning of what was to be identified as the Gulf War Syndrome (GWS). In the years since the war, as many as 100,000 troops have claimed they suffer from this mysterious disease. In our culture, the existence of disease as a specific entity is fundamental to ensuring the validity of that disease.The legitimacy of GWS has been repeatedly called into question because no specific physiological etiology has been confirmed, and it is becoming more and more likely that the origin of GWS will never be clearly delineated. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the complicated process of defining GWS as a legitimate illness in the absence of etiological evidence and to suggest a method of treatment for individuals who still suffer from its sequelae.     

A proposal for the use of advance directives in the treatment of incompetent mentally ill persons

[M]y question is how these patients while competent might be able to give their own informed consent to treatment, despite being both unwilling and incompetent to do so when treatment is to be begun, thereby reducing the need to relax the dangerousness criteria for involuntary commitment. It is uncontroversial that the dangerousness requirement would be too restrictive for all treatment of mental illness. When competent patients voluntarily seek and/or accept treatment for their mental illness, neither public policy nor medical practice restricts treatment to those patients judged to be dangerous. Instead, criteria should be and generally are comparable to those for the treatment of physical illness -- whether the patient is ill, in this case mentally ill, and likely to benefit from treatment. Through use of advance directives, it would be possible for mentally ill persons who are currently refusing treatment to give prior consent, while competent and with their disease in remission, to treatment at a later time when they are incompetent, have become noncompliant, and are refusing treatment. My proposal is certainly not entirely novel, since others have made similar proposals under the heading of Ulysses contracts and voluntary commitment contracts. Addressing briefly some of the criticisms of these earlier proposals will bring out one fundamental difference between them and my proposal here for a new use of advance directives -- whether the patient must then be incompetent when the contract or directive made earlier is later invoked -- a difference I shall argue strongly favors my proposal.     

Cultural Identity and Illness: Fulani Views

Cultural identity – who the Fulani think they are – informs thinking onillnesses they suffer. Conversely, illness, so very prevalent insub-Saharan Africa, provides Fulani with a constant reminder of theirdistinctive condition in Guinea. How they approach being ill also tellsFulani about themselves. The manner in which Fulani think they are sickexpresses their sense of difference from other ethnic groups. Schemas ofillness and of collective identity draw deeply from the same well andweb of thoughts. Three different approaches of schema theory are used totrace what ties illness to identity. These are 1) the schema asprototype; 2) a connectionist approach associates schemas for illnesswith other cultural schemas; and 3) a hierarchy of schemas. Thehierarchy includes master schemas for ethnic identity, schemas forillness generally and sub-schemas for separate ailments. Schemas orientand provide a framework for the practice of being Fulani – in the sensethat Bourdieu would describe practice as the application of practicalknowledge. Illnesses above the waist are said to be part of the Fulanicondition of belonging in arid climates while they need suffer thehumidity of Guinea. Illnesses below the waist are thought to arise whenone does not act like a Fulani, especially in matters of food and sex.As individuals disclose or conceal illness, as they discuss illness andthe problem of others they reflect standards of Fulani life – beingstrong of character not necessarily of body, being disciplined,rigorously Moslem, and leaders among lessors. To disregard standards orto suggest one does not care about such standards is shameful and placesone out of phase with others and with cultural norms. But to be in stepwith others and with cultural norms is to have pride in the self and thefoundations of Fulani life.