"Stuck in the muck": an eco-idiom of distress from childhood respiratory diseases in an urban mangrove in Northeast Brazil

Cadernos de Saúde Pública

Marilyn Nations²  Ana Paula Soares Gondim¹ 

[1] ,Universidade de Fortaleza Centro de Ciências da Saúde Fortaleza,Brasil

关键词: Medical Anthropology;    Respiratory Tract Diseases;    Ecology;    Antropologia Médica;    Doenças Respiratórias;    Ecologia;    Antropología Médica;    Enfermedades Respiratorias;    Ecología;   

DOI  :  10.1590/S0102-311X2013000200017

来源: SciELO

【 摘 要 】

Situated in neo-democratic globalizing Northeast Brazil, this anthropological study probes the role of ecological context in framing, experiencing, and expressing human distress. Ethnographic interviews, narratives, and "contextualized semantic analysis" reveal the lived experience of childhood respiratory diseases among 22 urban mangrove dwellers. Informants speak an "eco-idiom of respiratory distress" based on a popular "eco-logic", reflecting the harsh reality of "living in dampness". "Higher-up" residents legitimize their feelings of superiority by stigmatizing "lowlanders" as taboo, diseased (with porcine cysticercosis, swine flu) "filthy pigs, stuck in the muck" (atolados na lama). Animalizing inhabitants' identities demotes them to nonpersons. Besides infections, children suffer social stigma, ostracism, and barriers for accessing care. Promoting a "favorable environment" requires reducing ecological risk, challenging class-based prejudice, and restoring human dignity.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
 All the contents of this journal, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License