Living with Lupus: Women and Chronic Illness in Ecuador
Department
Sociology
Document Type
Book
Files
Description
Once associated only with the wealthy and privileged in Latin America, lifelong illnesses are now emerging among a wider cross section of the population as an unfortunate consequence of growing urbanization and increased life expectancy. One of these diseases is the chronic autoimmune disorder lupus erythematosus. Difficult to diagnose and harder still to effectively manage, lupus challenges the very foundations of women's lives, their real and imagined futures, and their carefully constructed gendered identities. While the illness is validated by medical science, it is poorly understood by women, their families, and their communities, which creates multiple tensions as women attempt to make sense of an unpredictable, expensive, and culturally suspect medically managed illness. Living with Lupus vividly chronicles the struggles of Ecuadorian women as they come to terms with the experience of debilitating chronic illness. Drawing on years of ethnographic research, Ann Miles sensitively portrays the experiences and stories of Ecuadorian women who suffer with the intractable and stigmatizing disease. She uses in-depth case histories, rich in ethnographic detail, to explore not only how chronic illness can tear at the seams of women's precarious lives, but also how meanings are reconfigured when a biomedical illness category moves across a cultural landscape. One of the few books that deals with the meanings and experiences of chronic illness in the developing world, Living with Lupus contributes to our understanding of a significant global health transition.
Call number in WMU's library
RC924.5.L85 M55 2013 (Waldo Library, WMU Authors Collection, First Floor)
ISBN
978-0292762008
Publication Date
2013
Publisher
University of Texas Press
City
Austin
Disciplines
Gender and Sexuality | Immune System Diseases | Latin American Languages and Societies | Women's Health
Citation for published book
Miles, Ann. Living with Lupus: Women and Chronic Illness in Ecuador. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. Print.
Recommended Citation
Miles, Ann, "Living with Lupus: Women and Chronic Illness in Ecuador" (2013). All Books and Monographs by WMU Authors. 257.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/books/257