Plain, the individual and culture

Abstract

In the pain, the relation between the individual and society appears clearly. The way in which pain is felt and expressed is ruled by cultural codes and pain itself is constituted, as a human fact, by the meanings given to it by society, that sanctions the ways to demonstrate feelings. Although pain is a singular experience for the one who feels it, it happens within a symbolic system, making it a cultural fact.

pain; culture; body; social meanings