Video: Emily Cohen on Disciplining Pain and Masculinity

Emily Cohen introduces the article ‘Disciplining Pain: Masculinity and Ideologies of Repair in a Colombian Military Hospital‘ 

Abstract

Colombia, a country at civil war for over 50 years, has one of the highest rates of landmine injury in the world. This article is based on ethnographic research conducted at the Amputation and Rehabilitation Unit of Bogota’s Central Military Hospital. Through an ethnographic description of surgical amputation and rehabilitation, I examine medical understandings of vitality and masculinity in respect to the senses – primarily that of pain in the act of amputation.