Nerves as Status and Nerves as Stigma: Idioms of Distress and Social Action in Newfoundland and Northern Norway

Abstract

The nature of the cross-culturally occurring folk or popular complaint of nerves as a form of psychosomatic illness and idiom of distress has been speculated on by a wide variety of scholars. Much of the research seeks to identify common symptomatologies with universal, diagnostic equivalents and/or seeks to expand on the more distinctive metaphorical qualities of nerves as an idiom of distress. Comparison and contrast of anthropological studies of two fishing villages (one in Newfoundland and one in Northern Norway) shows how, despite similarities in symptomatologies and metaphorical qualities of nerves in each community, the local sociocultural context can shape and reflect social action in ways that affect the experience of nerves and the consequences for those who suffer from them in a significantly different fashion. Contrary to the universalist perspective, we conclude that a person's experience of nerves cannot be abstracted from the local sociocultural context.