Title: People are not the same
First published: 1998
Description: Eric Silla adds a new dimension to the Social History of Africa Series through a compelling account of leprosy (Hansen's Disease) in colonial and post-colonial Mali. Unlike many studies of health and disease, People Are Not the Same draws on an extensive collection of life histories to elaborate the perspectives of patients themselves. It thereby weaves the transformation of "leper" identities with changes in medical and social responses to the disease.

By situating seemingly local experiences of patients within the larger context of national and global change, Silla deepens our historical understanding of a wide range of issues including stigma, marginality, begging, and migration. He explains how the debilitating nature of leprosy interfered with one's ability to marry, farm, and participate in other facets of "normal" life. Leprosy sufferers became outcasts in their villages and often migrated to treatment centers in Bamako and other towns.

At these centers, patients constructed self-conscious communities which empowered them socially and politically.
Subjects: Leprosy, History, Mali, Ethnology, Lepra, Medizinische Versorgung, Lèpre, Histoire, 44.06 medical sociology, Sociale identiteit, British Leprosy Relief Association, Social Identification, Soziale Situation, Medical history
Places: Mali
LC classification: RC154.8.M42 S56 1998