Grisi Siknis: A cultural idiom of gender-based violence and structural inequalities in eastern Nicaragua

Abstract

For the Miskitu of Nicaragua, Grisi Siknis is a contagious illness that predominantly affects women. It is characterized by numerous psychosomatic symptoms, including headache, fear, aggressive behavior, loss of consciousness, and periods of rapid frenzy. Although Grisi Siknis has gained academic and public attention due to its unique cultural elements and perceived sexual aspects, little is known how the contextual and gender dimensions of Grisi Siknis are played out in relation to the socio-political context in the region. Based on 16 months of ethnographic work in the Nicaraguan Miskitu Coast, including semi-structured interviews (n = 20) and participant observation, this article documents a semantic shift in the embodied and symbolic language of a cultural idiom of distress. I show how duhindu (Miskitu spirit associated with illness and misfortune) and witchcraft are symbols that share cultural resonance in the Miskitu community, while gender violence discourse is a new language incorporated into the logic of this cultural idiom of distress. I argue that this semantic shift allows the individuals in this study to communicate local experiences of complex forms of structural inequalities (migration status, unemployment, ethnic identity) and gender-based violence that tend to be normalized as a ubiquitous cultural problem while preserving the broader socio-cultural meaning the Grisi Siknis represents. The ethnographic accounts of Grisi Siknis provide empirical data to unpack the unexplored contextual processes and local discourses that transform the meaning and logic of cultural idioms of distress at the individual level of experience.

From distress to anger to shame: Gender violence, empowerment, and emotional states in Ecuador

“…Because they reflect structural conditions, as well as an individual's ability to make their suffering legible in a particular cultural‐structural domain, cultural idioms of distress are malleable. In a Nicaraguan Miskitu community, grisi siknis , a contagious illness that predominantly affects women, is “characterized by numerous psychosomatic symptoms, including headache, fear, aggressive behavior, loss of consciousness, and periods of rapid frenzy” (Venegas, 2022, 540). Grisi siknis changes over time, revealing how social anxieties shift according to newly emergent material challenges, linguistic framings, and discourses.…”

“…Grisi siknis changes over time, revealing how social anxieties shift according to newly emergent material challenges, linguistic framings, and discourses. Venegas (2022) finds that grisi siknis captures individual and collective struggles with migration status, poverty, ethnic identity, and most recently, interpersonal violence. In this way, this idiom reflects new logics, as “gender violence discourse [becomes] a new language incorporated into the logic of this cultural idiom of distress” (546).…”

The neurobiology of functional neurological disorders characterised by impaired awareness

“…Symptoms appear to be anticipated by anxiety and headaches, culminating in long periods of coma-like unconsciousness, with sudden outbreaks of violent and aggressive behaviour. Many cases were associated with gender-based violence and oppression, as the young women were pressurised into sexual relationships with older men ( 46 ). It may be argued that the symptomatology associated with the condition may avert this harassment ( 35 ).…”

“…Patients give rich and varied accounts of disturbance of awareness during seizures. NES are clinically challenging to diagnose ( 46 ); the gold standard is Video Electroencephalogram (vEEG) monitoring, where the events are monitored by continuous video recording and simultaneously co-registered with Electroencephalogram (EEG). When a patient’s habitual event is captured on vEEG and the clinicians are provided with a complete patient history, diagnosis of NES can be made with high confidence ( 47–64 ).…”

Culture-bound syndromes, idioms of distress, and cultural concepts of distress: New directions for an old concept in psychological anthropology

“…With an eye toward culturally congruent clinical applications, the authors observe how similar women's approaches to distress management are to cognitive-behavioral therapeutic approaches. Likewise, Venegas’s (2022) study of Grisi Siknis among Nicaraguan Miskitu builds on theory by examining “a semantic shift in the embodied and symbolic language of a cultural idiom of distress” ( p. xx ). While idioms of distress have long been theorized as socially acceptable forms of complaint about structural inequalities, in this case, a centuries-old idiom of distress (first documented in the 16th century) is repurposed to create new possibilities for discourse about gender-based violence.…”