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DiGiacomo, Susan - Metaphor As Illness

DiGiacomo, Susan - Metaphor as Illness

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PelículasVeladas
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83 views15 pages

DiGiacomo, Susan - Metaphor As Illness

DiGiacomo, Susan - Metaphor as Illness

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PelículasVeladas
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Medica Anhrpegy 18, pp 109-187 01992 Gorton ad Breach Scene Pblchers SA eprins eve ety fom the pubeber ‘Pred in the United Sats of Arena PPetowpying pened by iene ely Metaphor as IIIness: Postmodern Dilemmas in the Representation of Body, Mind and Disorder Susan M. DiGiacomo ‘The search for» synthesis dg the gap between materi and Healt approaches in anthropologist theory has been vigtted by recent ef to deweop a cel media ‘trope Noted fo integting danas and cult interpretation, te "el body paragon _Epunately trom one anther tod independently of socal contest. Honey sang rom the ‘mindfl body” lcourse a wefleveenarenes ft crienual grounding in teh poplar and biomedical discourses of Mess, with which i exchanges meanings ae rm which ‘crore dominating power The cane of carer aa metaphorze nse and pthalepted ‘wope i sed to te ht proce, ey wort: postmodernism, epg ery, med anh, dy INTRODUCTION ‘A few years ago, Sherry Ortner (1984:126-127) observed that the old antagonisms that, in their paradoxical way, served to bind anthropology together as a discipline seemed to be disappearing. If during the sities and seventies the field lacked a single paradigm bridging all the subfields, at least there were a few clearly demar- cated theoretical camps. From these well-defended positions anthropologists, could snipe at one another inthe pages of professional journals, characterizing — and caricaturing—each other's projects in terms ofa variety of well-known binary ‘oppositions: materialist vs. idealist; applied vs. academic; biological reductionist v5, naive humanist; ultimately, science vs. art. Beginning with the early eighties, however, a pervasive uncertainty set in, If anthropologists ceased to call each other names, it was because formerly neatly ‘bounded theoretical categories had begun to lose definition. Victor Turner, the _great sixties theoretician of symbolic structure and ant-atructure, had a name for this taxonomic chaos: liminality. Liminal disorder in ritual contexts isthe ground. from which a reordering of identities and structures emerges, and so Ortner dliscemed within the confusion around her the emergent shape of a new theoretical orientation: “practice.” Neither a theory nor a method, “practice” was rather an. Sus M, DGincowe postal resrh esc inthe Dei of Ant. Macs Hal, Unibet of Massa Amierat MA (03. She hs cond rcrc te eegerm exper of ‘ance sro, and ot rationalise Cae. NO $M, DiGicom ‘ordering principle, a “key symbol” (Ortners own concept) in terms of which new theories and methods were beginning to develop. However, paradigms lost are not easily regained. The development of Turners ‘own work llstates what has ben happeaingin the profession generally. Turners concept of liinalty broadened and expanded tothe “liminakd” and the “hidic™ (lurner 1986}. During the last years of his ile, he focused increasingly on the performative dimension of ritual going so far aso experiment with eating tual ‘dramas. This was, by his own acknowledgment, play, but with the serious intent of ‘itiqing the cognitive representation of ital and ceremonial structures: Phased another way, Turner's is an argument for greater reflexivity (another “key symbol” that hae come, of bale, to rival “practice” in importance) to be achieved by

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