Alzheimer’s disease and shamanism: (im)possible dialogues

Abstract

During my fieldwork I often heard people relating dementia to insanity, becoming someone else, or being possessed. Attempting to understand what is at stake in this “becoming another”, I propose a dialogue between Alzheimer’s disease and shamanism as phenomena that deal with processes of transformation in extreme situations, such as disease, misfortune, disorder, and death. Such a dialogue, which involves similarities and differences, allows us to think about the shifts in the notions of person, illness and reality between distinct subjects and fields. Taking discussions on shamanism as a contrast value, an analogy that is “good to think”, I turn to other references for understanding Alzheimer’s disease not only as a diagnosis, but also as an experience, a way of life, “another world”. The aim is to demonstrate how the biomedical discourse of the “dissolution of the self” is based on a specific notion of person.

Keywords:
Alzheimer’s disease; Shamanism: Delusion; Notion of person; Ethnography