Epilepsy in Our World: An Ethnographic View

This paper describes how epilepsy is viewed according to biomedicine and the scientific literature and argues that the subjective experience of people dealing with illness is often overlooked by focusing solely on this approach. A review of the pertinent literature from a social science perspective, mainly anthropology and sociology, illustrates the richness of the lived experience of epilepsy that can be uncovered by using ethnographic and other qualitative methods, including narrative studies, in the interest of informing medical practice and leading to a better understanding and treatment of people with this disorder. (C) 2000 Academic Press