Jacobsen Frode F
Bergen University College, Bergen, Norway.
Anthropol Med. 2012;19(3):291-302. doi: 10.1080/13648470.2011.646945. Epub 2012 Jan 11.
The present paper deals with the parents' narratives of sickness and misfortune of their children among the Beja people in the Red Sea Hills, Northeastern Sudan. Drawing on fieldwork focusing parents' health-seeking behavior related to child sicknesses through 1993-95, and combining participant observation and interviews, the aim is firstly to elucidate how markers of uncertainty is a pronounced trait of Beja sickness narratives, inviting listeners to actively engage in the stories, adding to a still scarce but growing literature on narration and uncertainty. Secondly, it aims at relating this narrative style to wider contexts of Beja culture and society, a type of analysis seldom undertaken within the field of medical anthropology. It is argued that although some facets of the lives of Beja people have changed since the time of the fieldwork, the changes are not pronounced and have not changed the cultural environment so as to make the analysis and conclusions of this paper less valid.
本文探讨了苏丹东北部红海山区贝贾人关于其子女疾病与不幸的父母叙述。基于1993年至1995年聚焦父母针对儿童疾病的求医行为的田野调查，并结合参与观察与访谈，其目的首先是阐明不确定性标记如何成为贝贾人疾病叙述的一个显著特征，促使听众积极参与故事，这为关于叙述与不确定性的虽仍稀少但不断增长的文献增添了内容。其次，其目的是将这种叙述风格与贝贾文化和社会的更广泛背景联系起来，这是医学人类学领域很少进行的一种分析。有人认为，尽管自田野调查以来贝贾人的生活有些方面发生了变化，但这些变化并不显著，也没有改变文化环境，从而使本文的分析和结论失效。
