Reading Sensations: Understanding the Process of Distinguishing `Fine' from `Sick'

Abstract

Sensations form the bases of our recognition that we are well, or, alternatively, that something is wrong. What is the process which transforms a sensation into a symptom? In this article, I draw on fieldwork from Lombok, Indonesia to propose a model of the processes through which sensations become symptoms. Perceptional and interpretive decisions regarding what sensations need to be attended to as potential symptoms may be the result of personal awareness of cultural ideas about vulnerability, sensation duration, and interference with activities. The interpretation of sensations is always tentative, conditional on further cultural information regarding whether the sensation should be constructed into a symptom. I conclude by suggesting a model of the processes through which sensations are interpreted, become pathologized, and are socially legitimated.

Directing the senses in the contemporary orientations to cancer disease control: Debating symptom research

“…Following the work of Hinton (2002Hinton ( , 2008 and Geurts (2002) along with others (e.g. Nichter, 2008;Hay, 2008) this paper suggest that integrating research on sensorial experience with critical writings on discourse and biopower is one way to more fully articulate relations between biomedical knowledge and bodily experience; thus allowing us to 'do this tracking'. Following the proposition presented that our sensorium, defined as the bases of our perception and the seat of embodied sensation, is historically and socially constituted (Geurts, 2002), the paper thus echoes ongoing calls to explore symptom experiences as cultural configurations of sensation experience.…”

“…This leads to the second part of the paper, which contributes to an emergent critical literature on symptom experiences (cf. Hay, 2008;Risør, 2011, Hinton & Hinton, 2002.…”

“…Following the proposition presented that our sensorium, defined as the bases of our perception and the seat of embodied sensation, is historically and socially constituted (Geurts, 2002), the paper thus echoes ongoing calls to explore symptom experiences as cultural configurations of sensation experience. Following Cameron Hay (2008) this may be epitomized as:…”

“…In a special issue of Transcultural Psychiatry Hinton and Kirmayer (Hinton et al, 2008) together with Nichter (2008) and others (Hay, 2008) embarked on presenting an agenda to explore the relevance of the senses to medical anthropology. While this brief excerpt on Marianne's encounter with her doctor, Thomas, does not allow us to reflect in detail on the social processes through which she came to experience her body as potentially hiding a cancer, it does, however, accentuate the relevance of turning to symptom experiences as cultural configurations of sensorial experience.…”

Sensations, Symptoms and Healthcare Seeking

“…What follows in this introduction is therefore not intended to be a comprehensive overview. Rather, with a view to human suff ering and what Thomas Csordas has called somatic modes of att ention (1993) related to illness, sickness and disease, we wish to illustrate some of the links or contributions we see an anthropology of the senses may have for what has been referred to as 'medical anthropology of sensations' (Nichter 2008), and in particular its dealings with 'symptom experiences' (Hay 2008). As aptly phrased by Herzfeld when delineating an anthropology of the senses, the issue in medical anthropology 'is no longer simply one of recognizing that culture mediates experience but has become a focus on how such mediation is negotiated and modulated through actual changes in the social sphere' (Herzfeld 2007: 433).…”