Venegas, Maria
(2017)
ALIENATED AFFLICTION: THE POLITICS OF GRISI SIKNIS EXPERIENCE IN NICARAGUA.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
For the Miskitu of Nicaragua, Grisi Siknis is a contagious illness that results from demonic possession and witchcraft. This affliction is characterized by numerous psychosomatic symptoms, such as aggressive behavior, loss of consciousness and periods of rapid frenzy. Grisi Siknis affects predominantly Miskitu women but men are also affected. Grisi Siknis is a historical and social embodied illness that has acquired new meanings at different levels of the Miskitu society. Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork (which included in-depth and group interviews, participant observation, collection of secondary materials and reports) in Bilwi-Puerto Cabezas, this dissertation examines the individual, social and institutional levels that produce, redefine and legitimize Grisi Siknis as a “politicized illness.”
At the institutional biomedical level, Grisi Siknis has become an illness redefined as a collective hysteria affecting indigenous peoples with the goal to legitimize the Intercultural Health Model of the region. At the social level, it provides the political arena through which indigenous activism in the region articulate their politics and their demands for recognition and challenge state authorities and institutions. At the individual level of experience, Grisi Siknis helps to illuminate political and social practices that are interrelated to identity, gender relations and emotional responses to everyday lived experience of social hardships that are estranged from the political construction of biomedicine and indigenous activism in the region.
I conclude that the growing disconnection between the socially mediated lived experience and the institutional (biomedicine) and contentious (indigenous activism) uses of Grisi Siknis further feed into the discourses of sexuality, gender violence and inequality associated with the illness experience. Grisi Siknis is gender-inflicted illness that results from a combination of unjust and social inequalities. I demonstrate that while the narratives and experiences associated with the illness are actively created and distributed by the social order itself; the individual experience remain as the symbolic metaphor and critique of society.
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| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
2 February 2017 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
10 November 2016 |
| Approval Date: |
2 February 2017 |
| Submission Date: |
21 December 2016 |
| Access Restriction: |
1 year -- Restrict access to University of Pittsburgh for a period of 1 year. |
| Number of Pages: |
265 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Anthropology |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Grisi siknis, gender, health politics, illness |
| Date Deposited: |
02 Feb 2017 17:49 |
| Last Modified: |
13 Mar 2019 18:30 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/30633 |
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