Abstract

Stigma, Contagion, Defect: Issues in the Anthropology of Public Health

Author: Veena Das, Ph.D.

While much of the literature in the West emphasizes stigma as production of spoilt identity and its management, in other parts of the world stigma, along with its related concepts of contagion and defect, are seen as problems of connected body-selves. Thus stigmatized diseases are seen in some senses as “off the body” of the individual into the network of kin and community. The moral anxiety around stigma arises from its connection with taboo – deformed body-selves are especially seen as marks of violation of sexual and reproductive taboos.

Discourses on stigma are deeply implicated in the fault lines of racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination, but it is important to treat culture not as a set of shared, unchanging beliefs but as framed by contests and adjustments. The notion of domestic citizenship provides an entry into thinking of the ways in which culture is mediated and recrafted by contested engagements in the sphere of domesticity.

A major way of contesting stigma in recent years has been through formation of associational communities – not all forms of stigma though may be addressed in this manner since this depends crucially upon social capital and “bio-capital.” It is argued that it is the alignment between family and state that might provide resources in such cases to fight the stigmatizing disability. The problem is also complicated by the fact that in many previously colonized countries state legislations have lagged behind scientific knowledge in changing forms of legislation that was enacted in colonial contexts and was designed to protect colonial interests rather than the interests of the patients. Since the institutions of the state are equally implicated in production of stigmatized subjects, judicial activism towards reform of pernicious laws in this regard would be an important resource for marginalized groups to deal with stigmatized conditions.

September 2001