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People Are Not the Same: Leprosy and Identity in Twentieth-Century Mali (Social History of Africa Series) |
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People Are Not the Same: Leprosy and Identity in Twentieth-Century Mali (Social History of Africa Series)
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by Eric Silla
Sales Rank: 2635705
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List Price: $60.00
$60.00
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on 6-17-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 272 pages
Published by: Heinemann May 1, 1998
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0325000050
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0325000053
Book Dimensions:
9.2 x 6 x 0.7 inches
Weighs: 1 pounds
Book Description
Eric Silla adds a new dimension to the Social History of Africa Series through a compelling account of leprosy (Hansen's Disease) in colonial and post-colonial Mali. Unlike many studies of health and disease, People Are Not the Same draws on an extensive collection of life histories to elaborate the perspectives of patients themselves. It thereby weaves the transformation of "leper" identities with changes in medical and social responses to the disease. by situating seemingly local experiences of patients within the greater context of national and global change, Silla deepens our historical understanding of a wide range of issues including stigma, marginality, begging, and migration. He explains how the debilitating nature of leprosy interfered with one's ability to marry, farm, and participate in other facets of "normal" life. Leprosy sufferers became outcasts in their villages and often migrated to treatment centers in Bamako and other towns. At these centers, patients constructed sel
About The Author
ERIC SILLA received a B.A. from Yale College and a Ph.D. in history from Northwestern University. His latest article appears in the Cahier d'Etudes Africaines (no. 144, 1996). A recent exhibit on leprosy at the United Nations featured several of his photographs from Mali. After teaching at Northwestern and Georgetown Universities, Dr. Silla created and directed a study-abroad program in Mali for the School for International Training. He is the recipient of Jacob Javits and Fulbright-Hays fellowships from the U.S. Department of Education. The Social Science Research Council and the Center for Arabic Study Abroad have also awarded him grants for study and research in Africa.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: People Are Not the Same: Leprosy and Identity in Twentieth-Century Mali (Social History of Africa Series) (Paperback)
Eric Silla's social history of leprosy (a.k.a. Hansen's disease) in Mali draws the reader into a penetrating exploration not just of a disease but of the regimes of stigma, treatment, and solidarity that have been constructed around it. The author makes use of his own interviews with dozens of subjects--those afflicted with Hansen's disease, as well as healers from both African and European medical traditions--to sketch a detailed picture of the effects this illness has had on a society at large. These firsthand accounts are frank and often gripping, helping the reader to understand (insofar as it is possible) the depth of suffering caused not so much by the disease itself as by the manifold, and almost entirely unnecessary, social stigma that accompany it. By reinforcing his interviews with documentary evidence from French colonial clinics, leprosariums, and other sources, the author puts his subjects' stories in wider perspective. He even taps into centuries-old Arabic manuscripts for insight into the status and conditions of lepers in pre-colonial Mali. Silla's obvious familiarity with many aspects of Malian society shows through his writing, his references to local language, proverbs, and history. This is the way social histories ought to be done, putting their primary subjects and their own words first whenever possible, making judicious use of historical documents, and keeping theory in the background where it belongs. "People Are Not the Same" is one of those rare studies which manages to enlighten without indulging either in obscurantist analysis or oversimplification.
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People Are Not the Same: Leprosy and Identity in Twentieth-Century Mali (Social History of Africa Series)
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Price: $60.00
Updated on 6-17-2008.
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