The way blood flows: the sacrificial value of intravenous drip use in Northeast Brazil

Abstract

This paper examines a preference among rural Catholics in Northeast Brazil to treat generalized forms of malaise with isotonic solution administered intravenously, even where such treatment goes against biomedical advice. It situates this practice within a nexus of local ideas about the value of blood and sacrifice, which emerge out of socio‐historical and environmental factors particular to the region. In this context blood is merely one in a sequence of substances linked to the regenerative martyrdom of Jesus, to the agricultural cycle, and to the economic struggle for existence in a drought‐affected region. The materialization of blood, sweat, and tears on the surface of the body indexes social relationships built on sacrifice. The appearance of such substances, often between categories of close kin, are ideally characterized by the loss or flow of substance in a single direction. In such contexts replenishing the blood with isotonics maintains a uni‐directional flow, preserving the value of sacrifice.

Precarity at the Margins of Malaria Control in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh: A Mixed-Methods Study

“…The hill tribes in Bangladesh are not unique in their perceptions of blood. Around the world, fear of giving blood has been associated with conceptions of blood as a life-force [ 30 , 31 , 32 ], linking the lack of blood to the loss of strength and consequent weakness or illness [ 33 , 34 ], and even with the perception that its importance makes it a tradable commodity which needs to be financially valued [ 30 ]. Fourthly, people reported having limited access to public health care, either through its perceived low quality of care or lack of communication between Bengali health provider and hill tribe patient.…”

What Pehuenche blood does

“…In fact, various authors have argued that the term "substance" allows the material and metaphorical properties of blood to merge. Whereas Carsten (2011) and Mayblin (2013) have suggested that blood can function as both metaphor and metonym, Weston (2013) has recently offered us the concept of the "meta-materiality" of blood to refer to how the symbolic attributes of blood are not separable from the material ones, making explicit that what blood invokes goes beyond both metaphor and the material. 4 Inspired by these scholars' contributions with regard to the problematic distinction between material and symbolic properties of blood, in this article I would like to show how even the idea that material and symbolic properties of blood "merge" does not accurately resonate with what Pehuenche mollvün is, because for the Pehuenche these categories are not separated in the first place.…”

“…24 These 21. For an exploration of blood conceived of as the transformation of previously consumed food, see Mayblin (2013).…”

O que se dá, o que se herda, o que se gera

“…Mayblin (2013) mostra em seu artigo, no qual discute a importância do soro intravenoso no Sertão de Pernambuco e sua conexão com sangue de Cristo, que o sangue possui a propriedade de transmutação, modificandose de propriedade biológica para atributo de extrema significância social.15 E comida, em alguns contextos.16 Tradução minha. Segue o trecho na língua de origem: "was a kind of catch-all term that can be used to trace the bodily transformation of food into blood, sexual fluids, sweat and saliva, and to analyse how these passed from person to person through eating together, living in houses, having sexual relations, and performing ritual exchanges".…”