Questioning Misfortune
The Pragmatics of Uncertainty in Eastern Uganda

This study of adversity and its social causes in rural Uganda considers how people deal with life's uncertainties.

Susan Reynolds Whyte (Author)

9780521594028, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 January 1998

274 pages, 12 b/w illus. 1 colour illus.
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.56 kg

'This is a coherent, elegantly written book, full of nuanced insight, highly crafted, very usable as a text in medical anthropology but also accessible to a wide readership.' Anthropology Today

Some of the most interesting ethnographies of experience are concerned to highlight the indeterminate nature of life. Questioning Misfortune is very much within this tradition. Based on a long-term study of adversity and its social causes in Bunyole, eastern Uganda, it considers the way in which people deal with uncertainties of life, such as sickness, suffering, marital problems, failure, and death. Divination may identify causes of misfortune, ranging from ancestors and spirits to sorcerers. Sufferers and their families will then try out a variety of remedial measures, including pharmaceuticals, sorcery antidotes, and sacrifices. But remedies often fail, and doubt and uncertainty persist. Even the commercialisation of biomedicine, and the peril of AIDS can be understood in terms of a pragmatics of uncertainty.

Introduction
Part I. An Uncertain World: 1. Misfortune and uncertainty
2. The pursuit of health and prosperity
3. Going to ask
Part II. 'What You Cannot See': The Revelations of Spirits: 4. At home with the dead
5. The fertility of clanship
6. Little spirits and child survival
Part III. 'You Will Know Me': The Opacity of Humans: 7. Speaking of morality
8. Substances and secrecy
Part IV. The Pragmatics of Uncertainty: 9. More questions
10. Consequences. Notes
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]