Title: Questioning Misfortune
First published: 1997
Description: Some of the most interesting new ethnographics of experience highlight the indeterminate nature of life. Questioning misfortune is very much within this tradition. Based on a long-term study of adversity and its social causes in Bunyole, eastern Uganda, it considers the way in which people deal with uncertainties of life, such as sickness, suffering, marital problems, failure, and death. Divination may identify causes of misfortune, ranging from ancestors and spirits to sorcerers.

Sufferers and their families try out a variety of remedial measures, including pharmaceuticals, sorcery antidotes, and sacrifices. But remedies often fail, and doubt and uncertainty persist. Even the recent commercialization of biomedicine, and the peril of AIDS can be understood in terms of a pragmatics of uncertainty.
Subjects: Religious life and customs, Ethnology, Social problems, Social conditions, Divination, Medical anthropology, Ethnology, uganda, Uganda, social conditions, Uganda, religion, Anthropology, Magic, Ethnologie, Anthropologie médicale, Problèmes sociaux, Conditions sociales, Vie religieuse, Anthropologie, Magie, Illusion (performing art), Social issues, Brauch, Religiöses Leben, Medizin, Tegenslag, Nyoro (volk), Moeurs et coutumes
Places: Uganda, Bunyole (District), Bunyole (Uganda : District)
LC classification: GN659.U3 W59 1997