People Are Not The Same: Leprosy and Identity in Twentieth-Century Mali by Eric Silla

ISBN: 0852556306

James Currey (January 1, 1998)

Soft Cover, 220 pages

This text draws upon an extensive collection of life histories to elaborate the perspectives of patients themselves who suffer from leprosy in Mali. It describes the transformation of leper identities with changes in medical and social responses to the disease. By situating seemingly local experiences of patients within the larger context of national and global change, the author aims to deepen our understanding of a range of issues including stigma, marginality, begging and migration. He explains how the debilitating nature of leprosy interfered with one's ability to marry, farm and participate in other facets of normal life. Leprosy sufferers became outcasts in their villages and often migrated to treatment centres in Bamako and other towns. At these centres, patients constructed self-conscious communities which empowered them socially and politically. Eric Silla argues that lepers should be seen as vibrant political actors instead of their stereotype as pitiable victims. The text is a contribution to the history of French colonialism and of socialism, dictatorship, and democracy in independent Africa. The example of Mali also raises important questions about Western public health programs that emphasize biological cures with little regard for social rehabilitation.