Conclusion
Conclusion
Thoughts for the Day after Tomorrow
This book has explored the trajectories of health and disease in the context of poverty by focusing on the experiences of people in low-income neighborhoods in Delhi. It has discussed the clinical encounters between patients and practitioners and has presented the biography of different illnesses in terms of their dispersal over networks of institutions and relationships. It has looked at healers, ranging from practitioners of the occult to those who are certified as licensed practitioners and work in the local medical markets. This concluding chapter considers how we should understand the suspicion against narrations of illness in both literary studies and anthropology. It asks whether we can learn about health and disease in the context of poverty yet also speak to existential concerns about the fragility of everyday life; the place of the patient's experience of his or her illness that gives shape to (or not) to medical knowledge in the clinical encounter; and whether we can speak of the clinical interaction as based on knowledge.
Keywords: health, disease, poverty, Delhi, patients, illness, healers, occult, everyday life, medical knowledge
Fordham Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .