Labouring for breath: lived experience of chronic breathlessness in rural Bangladesh

This ethnography explores experiences of chronic illness in a rural Bangladeshi village, examining the factors that contribute to people’s experiences of unending illness. Anthropologists have mainly studied chronic illness in wealthy countries, or in contexts where formal medical care was readily available. However, far less ethnographic attention has been directed toward the ways individuals living with excruciating poverty experience chronic illness. This thesis examines poor people’s discourses of chronic breathlessness in rural Bangladesh, seeking to explore the lived experience of people who not only suffer from extreme poverty but also lack access to trained medical practitioners. The thesis argues that these rural sufferers of chronic breathlessness do not experience the illness itself as chronic. Rather, what dominated their illness experiences was a social situation characterised by the chronic presence of poverty, frustration, and disappointment. In this context, any illness, including chronic breathlessness, appeared as an episodic intensification or additional layer of suffering. Cultural and social norms also intensify the stigma surrounding chronic breathlessness, and this is particularly true in the case of vulnerable groups including women, the elderly, the landless, and those who lack supportive kin networks. Understanding the experience of chronic illness in rural Bangladesh demands that the illness experience is understood holistically. This means situating chronic breathlessness within the context of local cultural norms and social networks, as well as the broader local and national politics that produce a system of biomedical care that is beyond the reach of most poor villagers.