ABSTRACT
An interpretive perspective offers a counterpoint to the behavioral orientation in the social scientific literature on pain. The present paper develops a meaning-centered approach which focuses on three interconnected aspects of the of experience the cultural of suffering: sensation; (1) structure of construction pain’s causes of and pain cures. These (2) connections pain expression; (3) the the semiotics are explored through a variety of linguistic and semiotic forms, including metaphors, etymologies, gestural codes, taxonomies, and semantic networks. The study of metaphor has special value in revealing the cultural construction of pain, especially its sensory qualities, such as temperature, weight, and movement. The concept of semantic network provides a complementary tool for understanding pain experience; the analysis makes pain sensation the center of the network and argues that multiple meanings attach to this sensory core.
The paper examines these perspectives in the context of North Indian culture and medicine, specifically Unani Tibb, or Greco-Arab medicine. Pursuing questions of the “fit” between everyday belief and traditional medicine, the essay traces continuities in the “language of pain” in North Indian culture, classical Unani Tibb, and contemporary Unani clinical practice.
