| Autor: |
Vargas Roman VC; Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.; Department of Dermatology, Amsterdam University Medical Centers (UMC), Amsterdam, The Netherlands.; Amsterdam Institute for Infection and Immunology, Infectious Diseases Programme, Amsterdam University Medical Centers (UMC), Amsterdam, The Netherlands., Bezemer J; Amsterdam Institute for Infection and Immunology, Infectious Diseases Programme, Amsterdam University Medical Centers (UMC), Amsterdam, The Netherlands.; Department of Medical Microbiology and Infection Prevention, Laboratory for Experimental Parasitology, Amsterdam University Medical Centers (UMC), Academic Medical Centre at the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.; Fundación Misión Cristiana de Salud, Hospital Shell, Shell, Ecuador., Calvopiña M; Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Carrera de Medicina, OneHealth Research Group, Universidad de las Américas, Quito, Ecuador., Ortega F; Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador., Salazar NB; Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium., Schallig HDFH; Amsterdam Institute for Infection and Immunology, Infectious Diseases Programme, Amsterdam University Medical Centers (UMC), Amsterdam, The Netherlands.; Department of Medical Microbiology and Infection Prevention, Laboratory for Experimental Parasitology, Amsterdam University Medical Centers (UMC), Academic Medical Centre at the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands., de Vries HJC; Department of Dermatology, Amsterdam University Medical Centers (UMC), Academic Medical Centre at the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.; Amsterdam Institute for Infection and Immunology, Infectious Diseases, Amsterdam University Medical Centers (UMC), Amsterdam, The Netherlands.; Department of Infectious Diseases, Public Health Service Amsterdam, Center for Sexual Health, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. |
| Abstrakt: |
Previous research on the stigma associated with cutaneous leishmaniasis, a vector-transmitted parasitic disease, focuses on aesthetic appearance affectation as the leading cause of stigmatisation. However, Indigenous populations in the hinterland of Amazonian Ecuador trigger stigma expressions by recognising (muco)cutaneous leishmaniasis, primarily through atypical smell, followed by the odd voice sound, appearance and taste. This empirical way of recognising symptoms relies on embodied forms of identifying a disease, contrasting the Western supremacy of visuality and demanding to be understood via multi-sensorial anthropology. Through ethnographic research and data retrieved from eighty-three semistructured interviews and fifteen focus groups in seven Ecuadorian ethnic groups - including six Indigenous groups in the Amazon region - this paper analyses how the sensorium is a health thermometer. Findings reveal that differentiated cultural responses to a sense of peril, contagion and social (self)rejection, understood as stigma expressions, are linked to the holistic approach to health (or well-being) shared by Indigenous populations. In forest societies, well-being is explained through successful (non-)human relationships, and disease permeates through bodies that lack balanced relations. |
