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The Pain of “Thinking too Much”: Dolor de Cerebro and the Embodiment of Social Hardship among Nicaraguan Women
Author(s) -
Yarris Kristin Elizabeth
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
ethos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.783
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1548-1352
pISSN - 0091-2131
DOI - 10.1111/j.1548-1352.2011.01186.x
Subject(s) - narrative , abandonment (legal) , embodied cognition , ethnography , distress , psychology , sociology , expression (computer science) , psychological pain , social psychology , gender studies , developmental psychology , psychotherapist , clinical psychology , anthropology , political science , philosophy , linguistics , artificial intelligence , computer science , law , programming language
In this article I present the results of a community‐based ethnographic study of the social and cultural meanings of dolor de cerebro (“brainache”), a pain commonly expressed by Nicaraguan women. Based on the results of narrative interviews conducted with 12 women, I show how these women situate the pain of dolor de cerebro in relation to their persistent worries about the impact of death, abandonment, and outmigration on personal and family well‐being. I argue that, though the sensate physical experience of dolor de cerebro is significant, this pain is meaningful primarily as an embodied expression of the distress women experience as they confront the often‐overwhelming circumstances of hardship in their local social worlds. In this way, women's narratives of dolor de cerebro emphasize how somatic forms of suffering are inherently moral experiences, as they bring to the fore “what matters most” in people's lived experience. Thus, this research contributes to our understanding of how personal narratives of bodily disruption relate to cultural norms and social ideals, in this case, reaffirming Nicaraguan women's desires for continuity and stability in family relationships.