Paper short abstract:

Medical anthropology and ethnographic research on fragile spheres of human life emphasize enduring or 'containing' as important but anthropologically neglected modalities of acting which are not included in the discourses of 'illness behavior' either. Consequently, suffering in human life can be conceptualised not solely as an experience but also as a verb, something that constitutes genuinely agency. My arguments are based on recent research on pain and chronic illness.

Paper long abstract:

Anthropological research on symptoms without biomedical names has explored various ways and strategies that people create and use in their ambiguous situations. In addition to active help-seeking in the biomedical and/or alternative domains of care, some recent studies have highlighted a variety of peoples' ways of to cope in the everyday contexts.

Some studies in medical anthropology and in ethnographic research on fragile spheres of human life more generally, emphasize enduring or "containing" as an important but anthropologically neglected ground considering people's ways of acting. Enduring may constitute of small, minimal, often repetitive agency, occasionally of just dwelling, or lingering, embedded in the everyday. It implies that suffering in human life is not solely an experience but also a verb, something that constitutes genuinely agency. The notion of illness behavior does not grasp this kind of agency, neither does the vocabulary of agency that anthropology has in use more generally.

The notion of agency in social sciences in embedded profoundly in the Weberian and Parsonian heritage. Accordingly, agency is described in rational - and mental - terms either highlighting choice or normativity. The goal of action is constitutes of change, frequently defined as a social change or transformation. Maintenance or habituality are notions that are used dichotomously for action that does not fit the category of rational action. According to some pragmatist thinking in anthropology, enduring belongs not quite to the domain of these notions either because it is intentional and voluntary - but also something else.

In this paper my aim is to focus on enduring - or "containment" - as modalities of human agency. My arguments are based on recent research in this domain and my ethnography on people with chronic pain.