Legitimate suffering: a case of belonging and sickle cell trait in Brazil

Abstract

Patient activism organizations are formed around and seek legitimacy via both biological and biographical identities (Fassin, in: Theory Cult Soc 26(5):44–60, 2009). In the case of sickle cell disease (SCD) in Brazil, two different modes of suffering authenticate the lived experience—one is based on the disease state, the other is based on the ways in which racial inequalities and disadvantage contribute to its own suffering while also entangled with disease-based suffering. SCD is a rare genetic disorder that affects red blood cells and whose hallmark symptom is pain. This paper places an ethnographic focus on the failed mobilization of suffering by an organization leader in attempts to make claims for inclusion. The leader’s social and biological identities of mother, sickle cell trait carrier, middle class, and mulata disrupted biosocial cohesion. This disruption reveals a hierarchy of suffering, where some indices of suffering are delegitimized. This hierarchy illuminates how exclusion and representation work within a patient organization whose membership embody both physical and social distress.