Cultural meaning, explanations of illness, and the development of comparative frameworks

Starting with the cultural domain of illness and considering the issue of c ross-cultural comparisons at the level of meaning, this article discusses t he cognitive anthropological approach taken in my research, specifically ex amining the use of structured interview methods and the collection of illne ss case histories for cross-cultural comparative endeavors. I situate my ow n work in relation to several past attempts to construct conceptual schemes for comparing theories of illness causation across cultures. Based on my a nalysis, I suggest that the tension between existing comparative schemes an d efforts to understand how illness is culturally constituted in specific l ocations can be productively used to construct a comparative framework that remains open to ethnographic possibilities (cf. Hallowell 1960:359). (Cros s-cultural comparisons, theories of illness, Ojibway, Tarascan).