As the government and NGO public health campaigns in Tamil Nadu promote biomedical methods of cancer prevention and treatment as “modern” and “rational” approaches to cancer, localized notions that cancer is often a karmic punishment for an immoral act committed in the past or the physical manifestation of a kind of injustice that an adversary renders through the deliberate use of sorcery is being recast as a “backward” and “irrational way of thinking.” Yet women in Tamil Nadu continue to draw from both these ways of understanding cancer. In this paper, we explore how cancer patients and survivors in Tamil Nadu weave the public health discourse together with other sociocultural and religious discourses of cancer to create complex understandings and experiences of social suffering caused by cancer and to find ways to mitigate such suffering. Based on interviews conducted in hospital wards with women cervical and breast cancer patients and survivors, this paper explores how women often experience cancer as a biological, social and spiritual affliction that can be cured only when biomedical modalities of treatment are used in conjunction with religious modalities of healing.
Au Tamil Nadu, les campagnes de santé publique lancées par le gouvernement et les ONG promeuvent les méthodes biomédicales de prévention et de traitement du cancer en tant qu’approches « modernes » et « rationnelles » du cancer, ce qui permet de penser que le cancer est souvent une punition karmique pour un acte immoral commis dans le passé. La manifestation physique d’une sorte d’injustice que l’adversaire a provoquée par l’utilisation délibérée de la sorcellerie est en train d’être reformulée comme une façon de penser « arriérée » et « irrationnelle ». Pourtant, les femmes du Tamil Nadu continuent de s’inspirer de ces deux manières de comprendre le cancer. Dans cet article, nous explorons comment les patients et les survivants du Tamil Nadu tissent le discours de la santé publique avec d’autres discours socioculturels et religieux sur le cancer afin de créer une compréhension et des expériences complexes de la souffrance sociale causée par le cancer et de trouver des moyens d’atténuer ces souffrances. Fondé sur des entretiens menés dans les hôpitaux avec des patientes et survivantes atteintes d’un cancer du col de l’utérus et du sein, cet article explore comment le cancer est souvent vécu par les femmes comme une souffrance biologique, sociale et spirituelle qui ne peut être soignée que lorsque des modalités biomédicales de traitement sont utilisées conjointement avec des modalités religieuses de guérison.
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Panjalai,2 a community health worker for a non-governmental organization (NGO) in the Kanchipuram District of the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, told us that she believed her mother died of late stage cervical cancer due to biological processes. But, she added, many of her relatives hinted that it might have been caused by immoral behavior. And her sister, Roja, suspected their mother’s illness and death was caused by sorcery. In order to be out of ear-shot from her neighbors in the dalit, or Scheduled Caste, section of her village where she lived, we had followed Panjalai along raised footpaths dividing verdant paddy fields to an open area with two cremation pyre platforms side-by-side. Panjalai explained that the fully constructed cremation platform was used by the Backward Class groups in the village who are deemed to have higher, more privileged status than members of the Scheduled Castes. Scheduled Caste Hindu villagers like herself had been strictly prohibi...
She is Professor and Head of Studies of Anthropology at Yales-NUSCollege. Her areas of expertise are in South Asia Studies, cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, and gender and sexuality.
She is PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at George Washington University. Her research interests include the anthropology of religion, science and the environment. Her current project explores religious revival in the amid riverine erosion in the island of Majuli, Assam.
She is recently graduate from Syracuse University with a bachelor’s degree public Health. Her senior thesis focused on public perception of colorectal cancer screening and her research interests are in Public health, cancer, science, and medicine. She currently works for the American Cancer Society as a fundraising specialist.
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VAN HOLLEN, Cecilia ; KRISHNAN, Shweta ; and RATHNAM, Shibani. “It’s Partly in our Hands; It’s Partly in the Hands of the Goddess”: Cancer Patients’ Quest for Healing in South India In: L’hôpital en Asie du Sud: Politiques de santé, pratiques de soin [online]. Paris: Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2019 (generated 18 avril 2024). Available on the Internet: <http://books.openedition.org/editionsehess/23496?mobile=1>. ISBN: 978-2-7132-3155-1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/books.editionsehess.23496.
Van Hollen, C., Krishnan, S., & Rathnam, S. 2019. “It’s Partly in our Hands; It’s Partly in the Hands of the Goddess”: Cancer Patients’ Quest for Healing in South India. In Jullien, C., Lefebvre, B., & Provost, F. (Eds.), L’hôpital en Asie du Sud: Politiques de santé, pratiques de soin. Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales. doi:10.4000/books.editionsehess.23496
Van Hollen, Cecilia, et al.. ““It’s Partly in our Hands; It’s Partly in the Hands of the Goddess”: Cancer Patients’ Quest for Healing in South India”. Jullien, Clémence, et al.. L’hôpital en Asie du Sud: Politiques de santé, pratiques de soin. Paris: Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2019. (pp. 179-206) Web. <http://books.openedition.org/editionsehess/23496?mobile=1>.
JULLIEN, Clémence (ed.) ; LEFEBVRE, Bertrand (ed.) ; and PROVOST, Fabien (ed.). L’hôpital en Asie du Sud: Politiques de santé, pratiques de soin. New edition [online]. Paris: Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2019 (generated 18 avril 2024). Available on the Internet: <http://books.openedition.org/editionsehess/23346?mobile=1>. ISBN: 978-2-7132-3155-1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/books.editionsehess.23346.
Jullien, C., Lefebvre, B., & Provost, F. (Eds.) 2019. L’hôpital en Asie du Sud: Politiques de santé, pratiques de soin. Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales. doi:10.4000/books.editionsehess.23346
Jullien, Clémence, et al., ed. L’hôpital en Asie du Sud: Politiques de santé, pratiques de soin. Paris: Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2019. Web. <http://books.openedition.org/editionsehess/23346?mobile=1>.
Zotero compliant
L’hôpital en Asie du Sud
Politiques de santé, pratiques de soin
Clémence Jullien, Bertrand Lefebvre and Fabien Provost (ed.)
…
“It’s Partly in our Hands; It’s Partly in the Hands of the Goddess”
Cancer Patients’ Quest for Healing in South India
Cecilia Van Hollen, Shweta Krishnan and Shibani Rathnam