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The Resource Stories in the time of cholera : racial profiling during a medical nightmare, Charles L. Briggs with Clara Mantini-Briggs

Stories in the time of cholera : racial profiling during a medical nightmare, Charles L. Briggs with Clara Mantini-Briggs

Creator
Author
Contributor
Summary
Cholera, although it can kill an adult through dehydration in half a day, is easily treated. Yet in 1992-93, some five hundred people died from cholera in the Orinoco Delta of eastern Venezuela. In some communities, a third of the adults died in a single night, as anthropologist Charles Briggs and Clara Mantini-Briggs, a Venezuelan public health physician, reveal in their frontline report. Why, they ask in this moving and thought-provoking account, did so many die near the end of the twentieth century from a bacterial infection associated with the premodern past?It was evident that the number of deaths resulted not only from inadequacies in medical services but also from the failure of public health officials to inform residents that cholera was likely to arrive. Less evident were the ways that scientists, officials, and politicians connected representations of infectious diseases with images of social inequality. In Venezuela, cholera was racialized as officials used anthropological notions of "culture" in deflecting blame away from their institutions and onto the victims themselves. The disease, the space of the Orinoco Delta, and the "indigenous ethnic group" who suffered cholera all came to seem somehow synonymous. One of the major threats to people's health worldwide is this deadly cycle of passing the blame. Carefully documenting how stigma, stories, and statistics circulate across borders, this first-rate ethnography demonstrates that the process undermines all the efforts of physicians and public health officials and at the same time contributes catastrophically to epidemics not only of cholera but also of tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS, and other killers. The authors have harnessed their own outrage over what took place during the epidemic and its aftermath in order to make clear the political and human stakes involved in the circulation of narratives, resources, and germs
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Extent
1 online resource (xxvi, 430 pages)
Contents
  • Illustrations; Preface; Acknowledgments; Introduction: Death in the Delta; 1. Preparing for a Bacterial Invasion Cholera and Inequality in Venezuela; 2. Epidemic at the Door Cholera Prevention in the Bureaucratic Imaginary of Delta Amacuro; 3. Stories of an Epidemic Foretold: Cholera Reaches Mariusa; 4. Fighting Death in a Regional Clinic: Cholera Arrives in Pedernales; 5. Turning Chaos into Contro:l Initial Responses by Regional Institutions; 6. Containing an Indigenous Invasion: Quarantine in Barrancas; 7. Exile and Internment: The Mariusans on La Tortuga
Isbn
9780520938526
Instance
Label
Stories in the time of cholera : racial profiling during a medical nightmare
Title
Stories in the time of cholera
Title remainder
racial profiling during a medical nightmare
Statement of responsibility
Charles L. Briggs with Clara Mantini-Briggs
Creator
Contributor
Author
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
Cholera, although it can kill an adult through dehydration in half a day, is easily treated. Yet in 1992-93, some five hundred people died from cholera in the Orinoco Delta of eastern Venezuela. In some communities, a third of the adults died in a single night, as anthropologist Charles Briggs and Clara Mantini-Briggs, a Venezuelan public health physician, reveal in their frontline report. Why, they ask in this moving and thought-provoking account, did so many die near the end of the twentieth century from a bacterial infection associated with the premodern past?It was evident that the number of deaths resulted not only from inadequacies in medical services but also from the failure of public health officials to inform residents that cholera was likely to arrive. Less evident were the ways that scientists, officials, and politicians connected representations of infectious diseases with images of social inequality. In Venezuela, cholera was racialized as officials used anthropological notions of "culture" in deflecting blame away from their institutions and onto the victims themselves. The disease, the space of the Orinoco Delta, and the "indigenous ethnic group" who suffered cholera all came to seem somehow synonymous. One of the major threats to people's health worldwide is this deadly cycle of passing the blame. Carefully documenting how stigma, stories, and statistics circulate across borders, this first-rate ethnography demonstrates that the process undermines all the efforts of physicians and public health officials and at the same time contributes catastrophically to epidemics not only of cholera but also of tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS, and other killers. The authors have harnessed their own outrage over what took place during the epidemic and its aftermath in order to make clear the political and human stakes involved in the circulation of narratives, resources, and germs
Member of
Cataloging source
N$T
http://library.link/vocab/creatorDate
1953-
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Briggs, Charles L.
Dewey number
614.5/14/0987
Illustrations
illustrations
Index
index present
Language note
English
LC call number
RA644.C3
LC item number
B685 2003eb
Literary form
non fiction
NAL call number
RA644.C3
NAL item number
(INTERNET)
Nature of contents
  • dictionaries
  • bibliography
NLM call number
  • 2003 C-156
  • WC 264
NLM item number
B854s 2003
http://library.link/vocab/relatedWorkOrContributorDate
1956-
http://library.link/vocab/relatedWorkOrContributorName
Mantini-Briggs, Clara
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Cholera
  • Cholera
  • Cholera
  • Disease Outbreaks
  • Ethnic Groups
  • Health Services Accessibility
  • Public Health Administration
  • MEDICAL
  • MEDICAL
  • MEDICAL
  • SOCIAL SCIENCE
  • Cholera
  • Cholera
  • Venezuela
  • Cholera
  • Minderheitenfrage
  • Venezuela
  • Cholera
  • Epidemieën
  • Sociale geneeskunde
Label
Stories in the time of cholera : racial profiling during a medical nightmare, Charles L. Briggs with Clara Mantini-Briggs
Instantiates
Publication
Antecedent source
unknown
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Carrier category
online resource
Carrier category code
  • cr
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Color
multicolored
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
Illustrations; Preface; Acknowledgments; Introduction: Death in the Delta; 1. Preparing for a Bacterial Invasion Cholera and Inequality in Venezuela; 2. Epidemic at the Door Cholera Prevention in the Bureaucratic Imaginary of Delta Amacuro; 3. Stories of an Epidemic Foretold: Cholera Reaches Mariusa; 4. Fighting Death in a Regional Clinic: Cholera Arrives in Pedernales; 5. Turning Chaos into Contro:l Initial Responses by Regional Institutions; 6. Containing an Indigenous Invasion: Quarantine in Barrancas; 7. Exile and Internment: The Mariusans on La Tortuga
Control code
55530028
Dimensions
unknown
Extent
1 online resource (xxvi, 430 pages)
File format
unknown
Form of item
online
Isbn
9780520938526
Level of compression
unknown
Media category
computer
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • c
Other physical details
illustrations
http://library.link/vocab/ext/overdrive/overdriveId
  • 22573/cttt1txm
  • 67eea588-e9f9-487c-b23c-673e473e548b
Quality assurance targets
not applicable
Reformatting quality
unknown
Sound
unknown sound
Specific material designation
remote
System control number
(OCoLC)55530028
Label
Stories in the time of cholera : racial profiling during a medical nightmare, Charles L. Briggs with Clara Mantini-Briggs
Publication
Antecedent source
unknown
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Carrier category
online resource
Carrier category code
  • cr
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Color
multicolored
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
Illustrations; Preface; Acknowledgments; Introduction: Death in the Delta; 1. Preparing for a Bacterial Invasion Cholera and Inequality in Venezuela; 2. Epidemic at the Door Cholera Prevention in the Bureaucratic Imaginary of Delta Amacuro; 3. Stories of an Epidemic Foretold: Cholera Reaches Mariusa; 4. Fighting Death in a Regional Clinic: Cholera Arrives in Pedernales; 5. Turning Chaos into Contro:l Initial Responses by Regional Institutions; 6. Containing an Indigenous Invasion: Quarantine in Barrancas; 7. Exile and Internment: The Mariusans on La Tortuga
Control code
55530028
Dimensions
unknown
Extent
1 online resource (xxvi, 430 pages)
File format
unknown
Form of item
online
Isbn
9780520938526
Level of compression
unknown
Media category
computer
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • c
Other physical details
illustrations
http://library.link/vocab/ext/overdrive/overdriveId
  • 22573/cttt1txm
  • 67eea588-e9f9-487c-b23c-673e473e548b
Quality assurance targets
not applicable
Reformatting quality
unknown
Sound
unknown sound
Specific material designation
remote
System control number
(OCoLC)55530028

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Genre

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      38.710138 -90.311107

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