- Title
- Dealing with distress: a medical anthropological analysis of the search for health in a rural Transkeian village
- Creator
- Simon, Christian Michael
- Subject
- Medical care -- South Africa -- Transkei -- Jotelo
- Subject
- Poor -- Health and hygiene -- South Africa -- Transkei
- Subject
- Transkei (South Africa) -- Economic conditions
- Date
- 1990
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MA
- Identifier
- vital:2082
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001599
- Description
- This study aims to characterize and understand the search for health in a rural Transkeian community. It begins with the observation that the people of Jotelo have to negotiate considerable hardships in their daily lives. These hardships include the impact of malnutrition, undernourishment and a wide range of diseases like tuberculosis, typhoid and gastro-enteritis. To survive ill-health, people develop numerous practical strategies. Most significantly, they attempt to maximise availalble resources, like cash, their relations with others and local medical facilities. Hence the study attempts to characterize how and why patients select various kinds of therapy in their search for health. By focusing on patients' recourses to treatment, the study reveals that the search for health is as much a personal experience as it is a social and economic one. This idea is developed in an analysis of the links betw'een work, illness and social reproduction. The point which emerges from this discussion captures the central theme of the study: the search for health is a profoundly personal, social and economic experience. This notion is strengthened by an examination of the historical and contemporary nature of local health and health care. It is observed that health and health care is intimately linked to the local and wider political economy. This not only serves to contextualise the discussion on patients' actual experiences, but points to the fact that these experiences are part of wider processes. By depicting the search for health in this way, the study hopes to have illustrated what people do in times of illness and why. Yet it also claims to have gone beyond such a depiction. By abstracting from its findings, it aims to conclude that the search for health is not merely caused by various local and wider processes, to which it has referred. In other words, it hopes to avoid a deterministic view of patients' experiences in times of distress. Instead, it is argued that the search for health is ultimately an integral part of the local and wider economic and political environment
- Format
- 244 p, pdf
- Publisher
- Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, Anthropology
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Simon, Christian Michael
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Collections
RU Department of Anthropology
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