Full Description
Faith and the Pursuit of Health explores how Pentecostal Christians manage chronic illness in ways that sheds light on health disparities and social suffering in Samoa, a place where rates of obesity and related cardiometabolic disorders have reached population-wide levels. Pentecostals grapple with how to maintain the health of their congregants in an environment that fosters cardiometabolic disorders. They find ways to manage these forms of sickness and inequality through their churches and the friendships developed within these institutions. Examining how Pentecostal Christianity provides many Samoans with tools to manage day-to-day issues around health and sickness, Jessica Hardin argues for understanding the synergies between how Christianity and biomedicine practice chronicity.
Contents
Table of Contents
Glossary
Note on Pronunciation
Map
Foreword
Chapter 1: Salvation and Metabolism
Chapter 2: Ethnography between Clinic and Church
Chapter 3: Discerning Ambiguous Risks
Chapter 4: Freedom and Health Responsibility
Chapter 5: Embodied Analytics
Chapter 6: Well-being and Deferred Agency
Chapter 7: Support Synergies
Chapter 8: Integrating Faith into Healthcare Practice
Acknowledgements
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index
