Questioning misfortune

Description

Some of the most interesting new ethnographics of experience highlight the indeterminate nature of life. Questioning misfortune is very much within this tradition. Based on a long-term study of adversity and its social causes in Bunyole, eastern Uganda, it considers the way in which people deal with uncertainties of life, such as sickness, suffering, marital problems, failure, and death. Divination may identify causes of misfortune, ranging from ancestors and spirits to sorcerers. Sufferers and their families try out a variety of remedial measures, including pharmaceuticals, sorcery antidotes, and sacrifices. But remedies often fail, and doubt and uncertainty persist. Even the recent commercialization of biomedicine, and the peril of AIDS can be understood in terms of a pragmatics of uncertainty.

First Sentence

Some thirty years ago, Clifford Geertz declared that the problem of suffering, as a religious problem, is how to suffer, not how to avoid suffering (Geertz 1967:19).

Excerpt

Some thirty years ago, Clifford Geertz declared that the problem of suffering, as a religious problem, is how to suffer, not how to avoid suffering (Geertz 1967:19).

Subjects

Series Statement

• Cambridge studies in medical anthropology ;

Other Editions

• Questioning misfortune: the pragmatics of uncertainty in Eastern UgandaCambridge University Press1997-01-01
• Questioning MisfortunePaperbackCambridge University Press1998-02-13
• Questioning MisfortuneHardcoverCambridge University Press1998-02-13