The problem of 'social suffering': The challenge to social science

Iain Wilkinson
Sociology, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom

PP: 113 - 121

Abstract

This article presents a critical review of contemporary research on 'social suffering'. It dwells substantially upon the ways in which social researchers account for the problem of bringing the lived reality of suffering to public attention.

The author considers the possibility that it is the public failure of writers to provide a sufficient account of suffering that, paradoxically, works to convey an essential part of how this takes place in human experience; namely, as a most painful denial of meaning and a terminal struggle for understanding. Such public failing, it is argued, has a positive value insofar as it has the potential to serve as a force of moral inquiry and political engagement.

Keywords

sociology; suffering; pain; ethnography; humanitarianism; consciousness

View references

References

Adelson N (2001) Reimagining Aboriginality: An indigenous people's response to social suffering, in V Das, A Kleinman, M Ramphele, M Lock, MP Reynolds (eds) Remaking a World: Violence, Social Suffering and Recovery, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Arendt H (1968) Men in Dark Times, Harmondsworth: Pelican.

Arendt H (1994) Understanding and politics: The difficulties of understanding, in Essays in Understanding 1930-1954, New York: Harcourt Brace & Co.

Boltanski L (1999) Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bourdieu P (1999) The space of points of view, in P Bourdieu et al. The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bourdieu P, Accardo A and Ferguson PP (1999) The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Cheungsatiansup K (2001) Marginality, suffering and community: The politics of collective experience and empowerment in Thailand, in V Das, A Kleinman, M Ramphele, M Lock, MP Reynolds (eds) Remaking a World: Violence, Social Suffering and Recovery, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Cohen S (2001) States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Das V (1995) Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India, Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Das V (1997a) Language and body: Transactions in the construction of pain, in A Kleinman, V Das and M Lock (eds) Social Suffering, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Das V (1997b) Sufferings, theodicies, disciplinary practices, appropriations, International Journal of Social Science 49: 563-557.

Das V and Kleinman A (2001) Introduction, in V Das, A Kleinman, M Ramphele, M Lock, MP Reynolds (eds) Remaking a World: Violence, Social Suffering and Recovery, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Das V, Kleinman A, Ramphele M and Reynolds P (eds) (2000) Violence and Subjectivity, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Das V, Kleinman A, Ramphele M, Lock M and Reynolds P (eds) (2001) Remaking a World: Violence, Social Suffering and Recovery, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Delvecchio Good M, Brodwin PE, Good BJ and Kleinman A (eds) (1992) Pain as Human Experience: An Anthropological Perspective, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Farmer P (1997) On suffering and structural violence: A view from below, in A Kleinman, V Das and M Lock (eds) Social Suffering, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Farmer P (1999) Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Fine R and Turner C (2001) Social Theory after the Holocaust, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

Frank AW (1995) The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness and Ethics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Frank AW (1996) Reconciliatory alchemy: Bodies, narratives and power, Body and Society 2(3): 53-71.

Frank AW (2001) Can we research suffering? Qualitative Health Research 11(3): 353-362.

Gouldner A (1968) The sociologist as partisan: Sociology and the welfare state, The American Sociologist 3: 103-116.

Graubard SR (1996) Preface to the issue 'social suffering', Daedalus 125(1): v-x.

Kim JY, Millen JV, Irwin A and Gersham J (2000) Dying For Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor, Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press

Kleinman A (1988) The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing and the Human Condition, New York: Basic Books.

Kleinman A (1995) Pitch, picture, power: The globalization of local suffering and the transformation of social experience, Ethnos 60(3-4): 181-191.

Kleinman A (1996) Bourdieu's impact on the anthropology of suffering, International Journal of Contemporary Sociology 33(2): 203-210.

Kleinman A and Kleinman J (1991) Suffering and its professional transformation: Toward an ethnography of interpersonal experience, Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 15(3): 275-301.

Kleinman A and Kleinman J (1997) The appeal of experience; The dismay of images: Cultural appropriations of suffering in our times, in A Kleinman, V Das and M Lock (eds) (1997) Social Suffering, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kleinman A, Das V and Lock M (eds) (1997) Social Suffering, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kleinman A (1999) Experience and its moral modes: Culture, human conditions and disorder, in GB Petersen (ed) The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Volume 20, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

Leader D (1990) The Absent Body, Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Levinas E (1988) Useless suffering, in R Bernasconi and D Wood (eds) The Provocation of Levinas: Rethinking the Other, London: Routledge.

Moeller S (1999) Compassion Fatigue, London: Routledge.

Morgan DG and Wilkinson I (2001) The problem of suffering and the sociological task of theodicy, European Journal of Social Theory 4(2): 199-214.

Morris D (1991) The Culture of Pain, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Morris D (1997) About suffering: Genre voice, and moral community, in A Kleinman V Das and M Lock (eds) (1997) Social Suffering, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Morris D (1998) Illness and Culture in the Postmodern Age, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ricouer P (1995) Evil, a challenge to philosophy and theology, in Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination, Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Scheper-Hughes N (1992) Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil, Berkeley: University of California Press

Scheper-Hughes N (1997) Peace time crimes, Social Identities 3: 471-497.

Scheper-Hughes N (1998) Undoing: Social suffering and the politics of remorse in the new South Africa, Social Justice 25(4): 114-142.

Skultans V (1998) The Testimony of Lives: Narrative and Memory in Post-Soviet Latvia, London: Routledge

Sontag S (2003) Regarding the Pain of Others, London: Hamish Hamilton.

Spelman EV (1997) Fruits of Sorrow: Framing our Attention to Suffering, Boston: Beacon

Steiner G (1967) Language and Silence, London: Faber & Faber.

Taylor C (1992) Multiculturalism and 'The Politics of Recognition': An Essay, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Tester K (2001) Compassion, Morality and the Media, Buckingham: Open University Press

Turner BS and Rojek C (2001) Society and Culture: Principles of Scarcity and Solidarity, London: Sage.

Wilkinson I (2001) Thinking with suffering, Cultural Values 5(4): 421-444.

Wilkinson I (2004) Suffering: A Sociological Introduction, Cambridge: Polity.

Navigate: Archives | Contents | Top of page

Sign Me Up for latest release updates

*  Email Address:
    First Name:
    Last Name:
*  I am interested in::





 

Web Feed

Latest Articles

Special Issues

Culture, Death and Dying with Dignity
Volume 22/1
Summary

Lifestyle Science: Self-healing, co-production and DIY
Volume 21/3
Summary

Transformations in Health Care: Privatisation, Corporatisation and the Market
Volume 20/3
Summary | Contents

Mental Health and Illness: Practice and Service Issues
Volume 20/2
Summary | Contents

Men's Health
Volume 19/4
Summary | Contents

Food, ethics and identity
Volume 19/3
Summary | Contents

Sociology, Recreational Drugs and Alcohol
Volume 19/2
Summary | Contents

Ageing, Anti-ageing and Globalization: Transitions and limits in the governance of ageing
Volume 18/4
Summary | Contents

Expert Patient Policy
Volume 18/2
Summary | Contents

Social Determinants of Child Health and Wellbeing
Volume 18/1
Summary | Contents

Integrative, Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Challenges for Biomedicine?
Volume 17/4
Contents

Community, Family, Citizenship and the Health of LGBTIQ People
Volume 17/3
Summary | Contents

Re-imagining Preventive Health: Theoretical Perspectives
Volume 17/2
Summary | Contents

Death, Dying and Loss in the 21st Century
Volume 16/5
Summary | Contents

Social Equity and Health
Volume 16/2
Summary | Contents

Medical Dominance Revisited
Volume 15/5
Summary | Contents

Childbirth, Politics and the Culture of Risk
Volume 15/4
Summary | Contents

Revisiting Sexualities and Health: Contributions from Sociological Insights
Volume 15/3
Summary | Contents

Closing Asylums for the Mentally Ill: Social Consequences
Volume 14/3
Summary | Contents

Workplace Health: The Injuries of Neoliberalism
Volume 14/1
Summary | Contents

Rural Health Symposium: Patients and Practitioners
Volume 13/2
Summary | Contents

Symposium on Women's Health
Volume 13/1
Summary | Contents

Symposium on Women's Health: Breast Health - Health and Ageing
Volume 12/2
Summary | Contents

Symposium on Indigenous Health and the Contribution of Sociology
Volume 10/2
Summary | Contents

Research Funding
Volume /

Research Methodology: Theory and Practice
Volume /

Reconstructing Health Knowledge
Volume /

crossref.org - The citation linking backbone



Website by Arrowsmith Websites Sunshine Coast. Business & Government Websites, Social Media, Web Hosting, Domain Names & SEO. Website Design Sunshine Coast, Australia.