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The aim of this study is to analyze the definitions and performativity of ab/normal. This text examines the influence of the cultural context and discourse of the chosen type of medicine on the form of diagnosed disease. It focuses on the phenomenon of spirit possession and certain mental disorders that exhibit similar symptoms, but that are inherently specific and different kinds of constituted abnormalities. Hence, diagnosis is introduced as a cultural norm and process associated with a particular conception of self. The purpose of this study is not only to illustrate the discourse collage, which consists of mutually influencing discourses of biomedicine, local ethnomedicines and religious way of treatment (ruqiya), but also to focus on the relationship between the concept of self and the particular method of treatment and the relation between the "healthy society" and "sick individual". Data from the ethnographic researches in West Sumatra and Bali from years 2010/2011 and 2013/2014 provided material for illuminating the topic from number of various perspectives.
About the author
PhD. graduate of Komenskeho Univerzity in Bratislava from the Social Anthropology with a focus on the Medical Anthropology which I was introduced to during my studies at UCL in London. Lectures at univerzities in Bratislava, Slovakia and Padang, Indonesia.
