2 - Illness representations in medical anthropology: a reading of the field

Summary

In their extended essay on the perceived breakdown of coherent conceptual paradigms in anthropology today, Marcus and Fischer argue that our post-colonial self-awareness and a broad loss of faith in totalizing theoretical visions has provoked a “crisis in representation,” which has in turn served as “the intellectual stimulus for the contemporary vitality of experimental writing in anthropology” (1986: 8). Little wonder there should be such a crisis. Despite our attachment to those with whom we have carried out research and our dedication to represent their interests and point of view in our writings, we find ourselves part of a discipline whose history is strewn with cultural representations which now seem profoundly ethnocentric, often clearly aligned with colonial regimes and those in power, explicitly gendered, and at times racist. Our embarrassment with this history is compounded by the fact that many of our informants and articulate intellectuals in the societies we study now read not only our own books and articles, but those of our predecessors as well. Their criticism of anthropology's legacy and of our own work gives the lie to our claims to speak for others, to represent them as they would represent themselves. Anthropological discussions of the past decade have thus become increasingly concerned with the nature of ethnographic representation, with our objectification and portrayal of “the Other,” with the place of the author and those represented in the ethnographic text, and with the “authorization” of our portrayals and our claims to ethnographic knowledge.