Purposeful pain : the bioarchaeology of intentional suffering / Susan Guise Sheridan, Lesley A. Gregoricka, editors.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Sheridan, Susan Guise, editor.

Gregoricka, Lesley A., editor.

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Series:

Bioarchaeology and social theory

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pain--Social aspects.

History.

Pain.

Pain--Social aspects--History.

Social sciences.

Physical anthropology.

Archaeology.

Forensic anthropology.

Human remains (Archaeology).

Pain--history.

Social Sciences.

Anthropology, Physical.

Forensic Anthropology.

Medical Subjects:

Pain--history.

Social Sciences.

Anthropology, Physical.

Archaeology.

Forensic Anthropology.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xix, 271 pages : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cham, Switzerland : Springer, [2020]

Summary:

Pain is an evolutionary and adaptive mechanism to prevent harm to an individual. Beyond this, how it is defined, expressed, and borne is dictated culturally. Thus, the study of pain requires a holistic approach crossing cultures, disciplines, and time. This volume explores how and why pain-inducing behaviors are selected, including their potential to demonstrate individuality, navigate social hierarchies, and express commitment to an ideal. It also explores how power dynamics affect individual choice, at times requiring self-induced suffering. Taking bioanthropological and bioarchaeological approaches, this volume focuses on those who purposefully seek pain to show that, while often viewed as "exotic," the pervasiveness of pain-inducing practices is more normative than expected. Theory and practice are employed to re-conceptualize pain as a strategic path towards achieving broader individual and societal goals. Past and present motivations for self-inflicted pain, its socio-political repercussions, and the physical manifestations of repetitive or long-term pain inducing behaviors are examined. Chapters span geographic and temporal boundaries and a wide variety of activities to illustrate how purposeful pain is used by individuals for personal expression and manipulated by political powers to maintain the status quo. This volume reveals how bioarchaeology illuminates paleopathology, how social theory enhances bioarchaeology, and how ethnography benefits from a longer temporal perspective.

Contents:

A bioarchaeology of purposeful pain / Susan Guise Sheridan and Lesley A. Gregoricka

Fashionable but debilitating diseases: tuberculosis past and present / Charlotte Roberts

Bound to please: the shaping of female beauty, gender theory, structural violence, and bioarchaeological investigations / Pamela K. Stone

Meaningful play, meaningful pain: learning the purpose of injury in sport / Gabriel A. Torres Colón and Sharia Smith

Pious pain: repetitive motion disorders from excessive genuflection at a Byzantine Jerusalem monastery / Susan Guise Sheridan

Therapeutic tattoos and ancient mummies: the case of the Iceman / Dario Piombino-Mascali and Lars Krutak

Intentionally modified teeth among the vikings: was it painful? / Caroline Arcini

"I thought I was going to die" : examining experiences of childbirth pain through bioarchaeological and ethnographic perspectives / Vania Smith-Oka, Nicholas J. Nissen, Rebecca Wornhoff, and Susan Guise Sheridan

The purposeful pain of drug addiction: a biocultural approach / Daniel H. Lende

The politics of pain: gaining status and maintaining order through ritual combat and warfare / Ryan P. Harrod and Meaghan A. Kincaid

Pain as power: torture as a mechanism for social control / Anna Osterholtz

Binding, wrapping, constricting, and constraining the head: a consideration of cranial vault modification and the pain of infants / Christina Torres-Rouff

Performing identity and revealing structures of violence through purposeful pain / Tiffiny A. Tung.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

9783030321802

3030321800

OCLC:

1117310803

Publisher Number:

99984135438