The allergy epidemic, or when medicalisation is bottom-up

• Autores: Roberta Raffaetà
• Localización: Of Bodies and Symptoms: Anthropological Perspectives on their Social and Medical Treatment / coord. por Sylvie Fainzang, Claudie Haxaire, 2011, ISBN 978-84-694-4991-2, págs. 59-77
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Increasingly people claim to be allergic and there is a wide use of the term that exceeds biomedical borders. This paper derives from a research conducted between 2004 and 2008 in Verona (Italy) and focus on discourses of allergy sufferers, allergologists and alternative medicine practitioners. It contends that allergy has gained an enormous success because it is a powerful metaphor to express the contemporary distress of people in their relationship with the environment.