Anthropology of ConsciousnessAbstractVolume 14, Number 2, September-December 2003, pages 1-26 Dreaming the Dark Side of the Body Mitra
C. Emad The
body-in-pain has regularly been relegated to "the dark side" of
Western biomedicine, academic research, and even everyday life. Following
Starhawk's aptly titled resuscitation of "the dark" as a fertile
source of spiritual transformation (Dreaming the Dark, 1982), this essay
examines the ways in which intractable pain can open up the body to "a new
body in the making" - one that engages with pain kinesthetically as well as
discursively. This essay explores three ethnographic cases emerging from three
different American fieldwork sites. An Internet mailing list called WITSENDO
constitutes the first case; through often daily participation in this electronic
mailing list, women suffering from endometriosis co-create a virtual community
that strikingly mitigates their experiences of chronic and intense pain. The
shift in how long-term clients of acupuncture care regard needling is the focus
of the second case. Acupuncture treatments in American clinical settings often
negotiate an American cultural assumption that needles are painful; this second
case documents what happens to patients' "fear" of needles and
experiences of pain after regular acupuncture treatments. The third case focuses
on a depth interview with an American doula who provides labor support
for women primarily in hospital settings; this interview explores the conditions
under which American women in labor experience pain and how alternative birth
professionals define and conceive of pain during childbirth. |
copyright 2004 American Anthropological Association |