Abstract
In this article I use Margaret Lock's concept of local biology as a standpoint to view tuberculosis as a threshold where distinctions between social and biological aspects of disease are negotiated. I conceptualize tuberculosis as a threshold in two ways: first as a passageway, and second as a space for navigating the limits of tolerance to therapeutics. The article is based on ethnographic research about responses to tuberculosis in post-Soviet Georgia. I focus on how health professionals and patients make claims to social aspects of illness by recuperating historical examples for tuberculosis treatment as a moral commitment to society, and in the context of emergent patient-centered treatment services.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 309-324 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Medical Anthropology: Cross Cultural Studies in Health and Illness |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2013 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Many thanks to everyone at the NTP and MSCI in Tbilisi who helped me with my research. The project was supported by a Dissertation Improvement Grant from the Science and Technology Studies Program of the National Science Foundation; the Eurasia Program of the Social Science Research Council, with funds provided by the US Department of State through the Title VIII Program; the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science at the New School for Social Research; and the University of Kentucky. This article greatly benefited from the generous feedback and patience of P. Sean Brotherton and Vinh-Kim Nguyen. Lawrence Cohen’s comments for an earlier conference paper (AAA 2011) helped me think through the notion of the threshold. Finally, I thank Lenore Manderson, Victoria Team, and three anonymous reviewers for their careful and insightful suggestions. I am responsible for any errors.
Keywords
- Georgia
- global health
- social disease
- tuberculosis
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Health(social science)
- Anthropology
