Author Description

Lying rearranges human relationships, contests ideologies and cultural assumptions, and manipulates social reality. In this volume, lying will be shown as one fundamental way of dealing with major issues and challenges with which individuals are confronted, such as health, body and identity concerns. In studying lying in the context of health and illness, the contributors explore the ways people gain power, or negotiate power within the limitations of ethical and moral arrangements they cannot effectively challenge. They consider whether lying is a part of the domain of medicine in particular and the specific benefit people draw or seek from lying in the domain of illness and medicine. Els van Dongen is an anthropologist and lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Amsterdam and a staff member of the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research (ASSR). Sylvie Fainzang is an anthropologist and research fellow at the CERMES in Paris and the CNRS in Aix, France.