Diagnosing Folklore

How the collision of folk understandings with medical definitions affect disability and stigmaContributions by Sheila Bock London Brickley Olivia Caldeira Diane E. Goldstein Darcy Holtgrave Kate Parker Horigan Michael Owen Jones Elaine J. Lawless Amy Shuman Annie Tucker and Kristiana WillseyDiagnosing Folklore provides an inclusive forum for an expansive conversation on the sensitive raw and powerful processes that shape and imbue meaning in the lives of individuals and communities beleaguered by medical stigmatization conflicting public perceptions and contextual constraints. This volume aims to showcase current ideas and debates as well as promote the larger study of disability health and trauma within folkloristics helping bridge the gaps between the folklore discipline and disability studies.This book consists of three sections each dedicated to key issues in disability health and trauma. It explores the confluence of disability ethnography and the stigmatized vernacular through communicative competence esoteric and exoteric groups in the Special Olympics and the role of family in stigmatized communities. Then it considers knowledge belief and treatment in regional and ethnic communities with case studies from the Latino/a community in Los Angeles Javanese Indonesia and Middle America. Lastly the volume looks to the performance of mental illness stigma and trauma through contemporary legends about mental illness vlogs on bipolar disorder medical fetishism and veteran's stories.Trevor J. Blank Malone New York is assistant professor of communication at the State University of New York at Potsdam. He is the author of The Last Laugh: Folk Humor Celebrity Culture and Mass-Mediated Disasters in the Digital Age and coauthor of Maryland Legends: Folklore from the Old Line State. Andrea Kitta Greenville North Carolina is associate professor at East Carolina University. She is the author of Vaccinations and Public Concern in History: Legend Rumor and Risk Perception.