Questioning Misfortune: The Pragmatics of Uncertainty in Eastern UgandaSome of the most interesting new ethnographics of experience highlight the indeterminate nature of life. Questioning misfortune is very much within this tradition. Based on a long-term study of adversity and its social causes in Bunyole, eastern Uganda, it considers the way in which people deal with uncertainties of life, such as sickness, suffering, marital problems, failure, and death. Divination may identify causes of misfortune, ranging from ancestors and spirits to sorcerers. Sufferers and their families try out a variety of remedial measures, including pharmaceuticals, sorcery antidotes, and sacrifices. But remedies often fail, and doubt and uncertainty persist. Even the recent commercialization of biomedicine, and the peril of AIDS can be understood in terms of a pragmatics of uncertainty. |
Contents
List of illustrations | xi |
Acknowledgements | xii |
Introduction | 1 |
1 Misfortune and uncertainty | 13 |
2 The pursuit of health and prosperity | 34 |
3 Going to ask | 60 |
4 At home with the dead | 87 |
5 The fertility of clanship | 108 |
6 Little spirits and child survival | 132 |
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Questioning Misfortune: The Pragmatics of Uncertainty in Eastern Uganda Susan Reynolds Whyte No preview available - 1998 |
Common terms and phrases
Adhola affliction African agents agnates AIDS amulets ancestors animals Anthropology asked banana beer biomedicine bridewealth brought Bugwere Bukedi Bunyole Bunyoro Busoga Busolwe cause child chloroquine clan spirits clansmen client co-wife curse removal curser daughter dead death Dewey diviner diviner's eastern Uganda ekuni exogamy experience explanatory idiom father goat gourd rattles Hamala healers health workers heart hospital husband illness John Dewey Kampala killed kind land lineage little spirits living Lubuya Malijani Manueri marriage married Mbale medicine medium mediumship mother mother's brother Mukama Muslim Namugosa Nandiriko neighbours Nyole offered Omuhyeeno parents patient person polygyny pragmatic problems quarrel relations relationships relatives ritual sacrifice second funeral ceremony shades shrine sick sister skin social someone sometimes sorcery speak suffering symptomatic symptoms things tion told Tororo Tororo District treatment uncertainty victim Walumbe Wandera Whyte wife wives woman women words