IM NOT DOG, NO - CRIES OF RESISTANCE AGAINST CHOLERA CONTROL CAMPAIGNS

Popular reactions toward government efforts to control the recent chol era epidemic in Northeast Brazil are evaluated. Intensive ethnographic interviews and participant-observation in two urban slums (favelas), reveal a high level of resistance on the part of impoverished resident s towards official cholera control interventions and mass media campai gns. ''Non-compliance'' with recommended regimens is described more as a revolt against accusatory attitudes and actions of the elite than a s an outright rejection of care by the poor. ''Hidden transcripts'' ab out ''The Dog's Disease,'' as cholera is popularly called, voices a hi story of social and economic inequity and domination in Northeast Braz il. Here, cholera is encumbered by the trappings of metaphor. Two luri d cultural stereotypes, pessoa imunda (filthy, dirty person) and vira Inta (stray mutt dog) are used, it is believed, to equate the poor wit h cholera. The morally disgracing and disempowering imagery of cholera is used to blame and punish the poor and to collectively taint and se parate their communities from wealthy neighborhoods. The authors argue that metaphoric trappings have tragic consequences: they deform the e xperience of having cholera and inhibit the sick and dying from seekin g treatment early enough. Controlling cholera requires eliminating ''b laming the victim'' rhetoric while attacking the social roots of chole ra: poverty, low earning power, female illiteracy, sexism, lack of bas ic sanitation and clean water supplies, medical hegemony, etc. For hea lth interventions to be effective, it is necessary to take into accoun t people's ''hidden transcripts'' when designing action programs. Copy right (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd