“Stress Knocks Hard on Your Immune System”: Asthma and the Discourse on Stress

Authors: POHLMAN, BETSY¹; BECKER, GAY²

Source: Medical Anthropology, Volume 25, Number 3, July-September 2006 , pp. 265-295(31)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

Buy & download fulltext article:

Price: $50.43 plus tax (Refund Policy)

Abstract:

Stress has been described by anthropologists and other scholars as a problematic concept, a discourse, a modern metaphor, a collective representation, and a cultural resource. The vast array of academic work in the arena of stress research belies the historical reality of stress as an object of inquiry; rather, stress is presented as new, the story of its emergence intermingled with processes of industrialization, individualism, and perceptions of modern life. This article traces the uses to which the concept of stress is put in the illness narratives of persons with asthma. It argues that multiple invocations of stress not only make visible the workings of personal responsibility and individualism regarding chronic illness management in the contemporary United States but also gesture toward the social relations of sickness that lie beyond individual control.

Keywords: asthma; stress discourse

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01459740600860063

Affiliations: 1: 3333 California Street, #485, Box 0850, San Francisco, CA, 94143-0850, Email: epohlman@berkeley.edu 2: University of California, Institute for Health and Aging, 3333 California Street, #340, Box 0646, San Francisco, CA, 94143-0646, Email: gay.becker@ucsf.edu

Publication date: 2006-07-01