This article examines the biocultural dynamics of social discrimination and physical disfigurement among people with leprosy, or Hansen's disease (HD), in Banaras, northern India. Based on the narratives and observations ofpeople living in colony and street settings, I trace three destructive processes by which the social stigmata of leprosy become physically expressed. First, strategies of concealment further the progression and spread of HD through late detection and undertreatment. Second, the internalization of stigma can lead to bodily dissociation and injury through self-neglect. Finally, some people intentionally seek injuries under conditions of desperate poverty. As a result of such mortification processes, these people came to embody, quite literally, the prejudices that exacerbated their condition in the first place.
BT - Medical anthropology quarterly C1 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15974328?dopt=Abstract CN - BARRETT 2005 DA - 2005 Jun IS - 2 J2 - Med Anthropol Q LA - eng N2 -This article examines the biocultural dynamics of social discrimination and physical disfigurement among people with leprosy, or Hansen's disease (HD), in Banaras, northern India. Based on the narratives and observations ofpeople living in colony and street settings, I trace three destructive processes by which the social stigmata of leprosy become physically expressed. First, strategies of concealment further the progression and spread of HD through late detection and undertreatment. Second, the internalization of stigma can lead to bodily dissociation and injury through self-neglect. Finally, some people intentionally seek injuries under conditions of desperate poverty. As a result of such mortification processes, these people came to embody, quite literally, the prejudices that exacerbated their condition in the first place.
PY - 2005 SP - 216 EP - 30 T2 - Medical anthropology quarterly TI - Self-mortification and the stigma of leprosy in northern India. UR - http://postonfam.atlblogs.com/archives/Barrett_StigmaLeprosy.pdf VL - 19 SN - 0745-5194 ER -