Body and Illness: Considering Visayan Filipino Children's Perspectives within Local and Global Relationships of Inequality

Abstract

Despite a plethora of studies counting, examining, assessing, and diagnosing Filipino children living in poverty, children's own perceptions and concerns about their health and security are rarely elicited. This article draws from fieldwork in an urban neighbourhood in the Visayan Philippines among children who, every day, face a complex and precarious landscape dominated by multigenerational poverty, social marginalization, recurring hunger, and the hazards of living and playing amidst mounting garbage and effluent. I discuss children's perspectives on body and illness in this challenging environment and examine their ideas within the larger context of adult-child, hierarchical relationships, and colonial and contemporary government discourses on children, health, and citizenship. I also examine children's sense of place, agency, and vulnerability, and I discuss the view held by many adults in this community: their children's ideas hold little value.

Keywords:

• body mapping
• children
• health beliefs
• Philippines
• poverty

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article is based on fieldwork conducted during several periods from 2001 to 2005. Funding for this research was provided by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Standard Research Grant (2002–2005) and a University of Victoria Faculty Research SSHRC 4A Grant (2001–02). I am indebted to my colleague, Dr. Marjorie Mitchell, for her comments on this article; to the children for their enthusiastic participation in the research; to the KASAKI nanays; to Julie Dojillo and NGO Balayan; and to several University of Victoria students, especially Soma Morse, for research assistance.

Notes

1. Exceptions include Szanton Blanc (1994) and Racelis and Aguirre (2002).

2. In addition to a variety of drawings, we conducted household surveys, monthly child health logs, and interviews and focus groups with children, parents, teachers, community health workers, and healers.

3. This technique was adapted from several sources, including Cornwall's (2002) use of reproductive maps drawn by women in India and Geissler's (1998) use of abdominal maps drawn by Luo children.

4. The body maps were coded separately by myself, my colleague, and a research assistant, and we noted few discrepant codings. I and at least one research assistant also separately analyzed other drawings and photographs according to theme.

5. Thank you to the anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.

6. “Bathing in the rain” describes both being drenched during a rainstorm and, literally, using the rain as a means of washing or cooling one's body.

7. In fact, particularly among children, I found little evidence of a systematic or elaborated “hot-cold” system of classification for food or illness, although it does appear in women's and healers' talk about prenatal and postpartum care.

8. A detailed analysis of the children's classifications and experiences of place will be the focus of a subsequent article.

9. The days when engkanto are most active are “the two days of the Catholic rosary's sorrowful mystery recalling Christ's suffering and crucifixion” (Aguilar 1998:161).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

LISA M. MITCHELL

Lisa M. Mitchell is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Victoria. Her research interests are in the areas of health, illness, gender, reproduction and children.