Abstract

MELO, Lucas Pereira de. Sufferings that "sweeten" the blood: diabetes, gender, and the work of time. Rev. SPAGESP [online]. 2019, vol.20, n.2, pp. 24-36. ISSN 1677-2970.

This article aims to understand the explanatory possibilities for diabetes from the perspective of women living with this illness. This is a case study about the life trajectory of an interlocutor, her family, neighbourhood relationships and her 'sweet' way of being. The focus here is on the causal explanations of the diabetes 'emotional type' as a result of the embodiment of social suffering produced in the interweaving of relationships between gender, family, neighbourhood, and emotions. Veena Das's concept of work of time was used to understand the interlocutor's agency in everyday life. Finally, diabetes is presented as a language to translate social suffering, thus expanding the etiological explanations of biomedicine.

Keywords : Social suffering; Type 2 Diabetes; Gender; Causality; Anthropology.

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