Stigmatized health conditions

Abstract

Anthropologists only recently have turned their attention to stigmatized populations in American society. The papers in this collection address varied issues of stigma and health: life career experiences of those with varied stigmatized illnesses; issues of identity, perception, and cognition related to specific health conditions; modes of coping with stigma—personal and group adaptive strategies, and positive functions of such adaptive strategies. The studies draw from a diverse range of field populations: diabetics, the deaf elderly, dwarfs, and severely scarred former burn patients. These papers originally were presented in a symposium entitled The Anthropology of Stigma organized and chaired by Joan Ablon at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Los Angeles, November 14–18, 1978.