Alienated Affliction: the Politics of Grisi Siknis Experience in Nicaragua

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Alienated Affliction: the Politics of Grisi Siknis Experience in Nicaragua ALIENATED AFFLICTION: THE POLITICS OF GRISI SIKNIS EXPERIENCE IN NICARAGUA by Maria D. Venegas BA, Boise State University 2007 Master degree, University of Cincinnati 2009 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2016 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Maria D. Venegas It was defended on November 10, 2016 and approved by Harry Sanabria, Emeritus Professor, Department of Anthropology Joseph Alter, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology Patricia Document, Associate Professor, Behavioral and Community Health Sciences Martha Terry, Associate Professor, Behavioral and Community Health Sciences Dissertation Advisor: Kathleen Musante, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology ii Copyright © by Maria D. Venegas 2016 iii ALIENATED AFFLICTION: THE POLITICS OF GRISI SIKNIS EXPERIENCE IN NICARAGUA Maria D. Venegas, M.A. MPH. PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2016 For the Miskitu of Nicaragua, Grisi Siknis is a contagious illness that results from demonic possession and witchcraft. This affliction is characterized by numerous psychosomatic symptoms, such as aggressive behavior, loss of consciousness and periods of rapid frenzy. Grisi Siknis affects predominantly Miskitu women but men are also affected. Grisi Siknis is a historical and social embodied illness that has acquired new meanings at different levels of the Miskitu society. Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork (which included in-depth and group interviews, participant observation, collection of secondary materials and reports) in Bilwi-Puerto Cabezas, this dissertation examines the individual, social and institutional levels that produce, redefine and legitimize Grisi Siknis as a “politicized illness.” At the institutional biomedical level, Grisi Siknis has become an illness redefined as a collective hysteria affecting indigenous peoples with the goal to legitimize the Intercultural Health Model of the region. At the social level, it provides the political arena through which indigenous activism in the region articulate their politics and their demands for recognition and challenge state authorities and institutions. At the individual level of experience, Grisi Siknis helps to illuminate political and social practices that are interrelated to identity, gender relations and emotional responses to everyday lived experience of social hardships that are estranged from the political construction of biomedicine and indigenous activism in the region. I conclude that the growing disconnection between the socially mediated lived experience and the institutional (biomedicine) and contentious (indigenous activism) uses of Grisi Siknis iv further feed into the discourses of sexuality, gender violence and inequality associated with the illness experience. Grisi Siknis is gender-inflicted illness that results from a combination of unjust and social inequalities. I demonstrate that while the narratives and experiences associated with the illness are actively created and distributed by the social order itself; the individual experience remain as the symbolic metaphor and critique of society. v TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 RESEARCH PROBLEM ............................................................................................... 5 1.2 BACKGROUND AND THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS ............................... 7 1.2.1Theoretical Framework ..................................................................................... 12 1.3 SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS ..................................................................................... 18 2.0 LOGIC AND METHODS OF INQUIRY ........................................................................... 21 2.1 RESEARCH PLAN ...................................................................................................... 23 2.3 PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION .............................................................................. 27 2.4 COLLECTION OF SECONDARY MATERIAL ..................................................... 29 2.5 ANALYSIS STRATEGY ............................................................................................. 30 2.6 THE ANTHROPOLOGIST AND THE SELF .......................................................... 32 3.0 THE AUTONOMOUS NORTH CARIBBEAN COAST OF NICARAGUA: HISTORY, PLACE, IDENTITY AND GENDER ........................................................... 39 3.1 THE SETTING: POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY OF BILWI PUERTO CABEZAS ............................................................................................ 42 3.2 COMPANY TIME AND SANDINO TIMES: SOCIO-POLITCAL CHANGES IN PUERTO CABEZAS .......................................................................................................... 45 3.2.1 Company time ................................................................................................... 47 vi 3.2.2 Sandinista Revolutionary Times ...................................................................... 50 3.3 EMERGENCE OF THE MISKITU: IDENTITY AND GENDER CONSTRUCTION ............................................................................................................. 55 3.4 HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTION OF RACE, GENDER AND SEXUALITY AMONG THE MISKITU .................................................................................................. 65 3.5 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 74 4.0 WESTERN AND LOCAL UNDERSTANDING OF GRISI SIKNIS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY, ILLNESS AND THE BODY ............................... 76 4.1 HISTORY OF GRISI SIKNIS ..................................................................................... 77 4.2 THEORIES OF ETIOLOGY ...................................................................................... 86 4.3 SYMPTOMATOLOGY AND TREATMENT .......................................................... 90 4.4 GRISI SIKNIS: HISTORY OF WESTERN PYSCHOPATHOLOGY ................... 93 4.5 GRISI SIKNIS: CULTURE, EXPERIENCE AND SUFFERING ........................... 97 4.6 CHALLENGING IDIOMS OF DISTRESS: GENDER, BODY AND ILLNESS 107 5.0 ILLNESS, GENDER, SEXUALITY AND EXPERIENCE ............................................ 116 5.1 STRATEGIC SUFFERING: TURNING OUTSIDERS INTO INSIDERS .......... 119 5.2 GRISI SIKNIS AMONG MEN: NEGOTIATING STATUS THROUGH ILLNESS EXPERIENCE .................................................................................................................. 127 5.2.1Kupia pihni: Turning into changed men ....................................................... 128 5.3 SEXUALITY, WITCHCRAFT, MARGINALITY AND POWER ....................... 134 5.4 SCHOOLYARD SOCIAL DRAMA ......................................................................... 140 5.5 STORIES OF ILLNESS, SEXUALITY, LOVE AND PAIN ................................. 149 5.6 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 153 vii 6.0 BIOMEDICINE AND THE POLITICAL PRODUCTION OF ILLNESS ................... 156 6.1 “THE AUTONOMY WE FOUGHT FOR” ............................................................. 158 6.2 HEALTH CARE AND INTERCULTURAL HEALTH DISCOURSES IN THE RACNN .............................................................................................................................. 162 6.3 REDEFINING GRISI SIKNIS EXPERIENCE ....................................................... 165 6.4 SCIENTIFIC AND EPIDEMIOLOGICAL FACTS: REDEFINING GRISI SIKNIS ............................................................................................................................................ 170 6.5 NUEVO AMANECER: LIFE, DEATH, AND POLITICS AT THE RACNN PUBLIC HOSPITAL ....................................................................................................... 178 6.5 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 191 7.0 ALIENATED AFFLICTION: INDIGENOUS MOVEMENTS AND THE POLITICS OF GRISI SIKNIS ..................................................................................................................... 193 7.1 INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE: CONTESTED POLITICS AMONG REGIONAL AND STATE AUTHORITIES ................................................................. 194 7.2 EMERGENCE OF ETHNIC POLITICAL MOVEMENTS IN THE RACNN ... 207 7.2.1 Indigenous Uprising: Political Polarization in the RACNN ........................ 210 7.3 CITIZENSHIP AND THE STATE ........................................................................... 215 7.4 THE CRISIS OF GRISI SIKNIS: TOWARDS A NEW POLITICAL PRACTICE ............................................................................................................................................ 218 7.5 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 223 8.0 CONCLUSION: ALIENATED ILLNESS AND ITS POLITICS .................................. 226 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 237 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Map of the RACNN, Nicaragua. Source: CIA ............................................................
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