"Como Si Nada": Enduring Violence and Diabetes among Rural Women in Southern Mexico. Issue 3 (3rd April 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Montesi, Laura
• Is Part Of: Medical anthropology. Volume 37:Issue 3(2018)
• Page Start: 206
• Page End: 220
• Publication Date: 2018-04-03
• Subjects: Mexico -- diabetes mellitus -- embodiment -- emotions -- enduring violence -- gendered violence; México -- diabetes mellitus -- corporización -- emociones -- aguantar -- violencia de género; Medical anthropology -- Periodicals; 362.1
• DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2017.1313253
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0145-9740

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Rural women in Southern Mexico link their diabetes to distressful life experiences rooted in ordinary violence. While much has been written on the use that diabetes sufferers make of their morbid condition as an idiom of distress, I investigate the personal and social effects that such an idiom has on women. As I illustrate, diabetes reflects an ambivalence that helps women to speak about the unspeakable and, at the same time, reinforces their ideas of culpability, namely that they are to blame for both the gendered violence that they endure and the diabetes from which they suffer.