Through the Metaphor: Reflection and Reshaping

Through the Metaphor: Reflection and Reshaping Selves, Situations and Health Kapil Dahal Introduction In their everyday conversations, people use different words and phrases to convey their ideas, knowledge, perceptions, feelings, and thoughts. In such verbal expressions, how people say about something is equally important to what people say about it. In other words, the pattern of communication is as important as its substance. Many times, the very pattern itself may matter more than its substance. Leaving behind Aristotle’s view that metaphor is a mere ornament, Vico (Vico, 1744 quoted in Hobbs, 1968) noted as early as the eighteenth century, the significance of the use of the metaphor lies in its pervasiveness. Use of metaphors in everyday communication in Nepali society prevails very commonly as it is found in other languages (Pigg, 2001) in the form of an “omnipresent principle of language” (Richards, 1936). Different social categories of people use various kinds of metaphors in their everyday conversations. In this article, I discuss why and how Nepali women choose varieties of metaphors to express their beliefs, feelings and ideas. Use of particular kinds of linguistic patterns, for many authors, is a way of constructing their identities. While expressing their ideas repeatedly in a particular way, as Brandes (1980, p.4) states, people also define their identities. This aspect of creating and defining identities through use of metaphors will be another theme that I discuss in this paper through ethnographic elaborations. How women use metaphors to delineate their life, body situation and their relation with men is the prime concern of this article. These two aspects, while they look like separate entities, are, however, intertwined and this article aims to engage with both. - 171 -

Contemporarty Nepali Social and Cultural Anhroppology: A Reader

This article is developed based on the analysis of various metaphors collected during the ethnographic fieldwork I was involved in (for multiple time dimensions). The paper draws from the study carried out to assess the psycho-social health status of women (Dahal, 2010) in order to assess the prevalence, dimension and impacts of gender-based violence during conflict and transition in Nepal (NCCR, 2011) and the qualitative medical anthropological researches conducted in central hills of Nepal to assess the impact of pelvic organ prolapse (POP) surgery (Dahal, 2009 and 2011). I was involved in leading capacities (as a researcher) throughout the whole process of carrying out these studies. Each of these studies was carried out with specific objectives – none of which were meant to explore the metaphorical portrayals of women and their identities. I never intended to collect metaphors per se in any of the researches mentioned. However, the researchers, including myself, come across different metaphors which the local people (women included) used to portray women and their situations. In fact, these metaphors came up as inherent part of the conversations. In recognition to the inevitability and pervasiveness of metaphors in everyday conversations, I chose to compile and analyse these metaphors in the form of an article. To develop this article, I revisited transcripts of the respective studies and their final reports. Most of these metaphors are used by women themselves; some of them are used by men while others are used by both men and women to delineate the role of women and their respective situations. Therefore, some of these metaphors might have, somehow, already been used in different research reports and articles produced from them. As these studies were conducted to elucidate the suppressive situation of women or their sufferings in different contexts, they represent only certain aspects of the reality of women’s lives and it never means that it is the entire veracity of their lives. Therefore, these metaphors have to be considered symbolically. Without underestimating - 172 -

Through the Metaphor: Reflection and Reshaping Selves, Situations ...

this limitation, the primary aim of this article is not to present the totality of these women’s life situations through metaphors. Instead, the article aspires to present how the use of metaphors can contribute to portraying reality in a particular way. Understanding Ethnography

Metaphors

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Many authors have described what comprises of metaphors in different ways. For Ortony (1975), a metaphor contains both a topic and a vehicle. The topic is the phenomenon being described, whereas the vehicle is some other object or phenomenon that conveys a certain meaning about the topic. Ortony further adds that metaphors are asymmetrical analogies in which high salience features of the vehicle are applied to the topic. Alternatively, they could be expressed as Target domain and the Source. The Target is the subject under discussion and the Source is usually more concrete concept from which we draw inferences about the Target. Richards (1965 quoted in Merten & Schwartz, 1982) pointed out that metaphor comprises of a comparison that arises from the interaction between what he terms the "tenor" and the "vehicle." The tenor refers to the idea, image or what can be regarded as object that is conveyed by the vehicle. This paper, however, deals only with how the vehicle facilitates to understand, reinterpret or negotiate the meaning of tenor. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) have clearly stated that the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of object or experience in terms of another: it is relational. Many authors have regarded metaphor as a journey from the known to the unknown. People choose a thing, as Brandes (1980) suggests, relating and representing abstract, unclear or unfamiliar entities by the concrete realities of daily existence. What kinds of ‘concrete’ things do people choose to compare with the things they want to portray depends upon what are familiar and what are not familiar

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among people in the given social or conversational context. Then with the help of familiar, they try to understand the unfamiliar. Conceptual metaphors are also used in euphemistic way through the use of mild or indirect word or expression instead of those which are regarded as extreme insensitive or direct. Fernandez (2008) regards such usage as metaphorical euphemism. It is obvious that people look for culturally appropriate words and expressions to communicate about what could be regarded as taboo in the society. As Burridge (2004,199) puts it, “what is taboo is revolting, untouchable, filthy, unmentionable, dangerous, disturbing, thrilling −but above all powerful”. This power of taboo keeps language users from avoiding the forbidden concept and go for euphemism. Metaphorization stands out as the most prolific linguistic device of lexical creativity (Fernandez, p.96), for instance, using figurative language to talk about the realm of copulation. Highlighting the ‘situatedness’ of metaphor, Hellsten (2002) regards it as a flexible tool of making sense of the world and communicating views to others. Hellsten’s definition also implies that people select one metaphor over the other to communicate reality in a particular way. Illustrating the relationship between science and media from the point of view of metaphors, Hellsten describes the role of metaphors as tools of communication in society and social construction of the issue. In this way, for him, metaphors contribute a way of making abstract problems more concrete. Fernandez (1974,p.123) regards this function of the metaphor transcending from the abstract and inchoate in the subject to the more concrete, ostensive, and easily graspable in the metaphoric predicate as the semantic movement. Reviewing some of the writings on metaphor, Lakoff (1993) summarizes that the emerging trend suggests that the locus of metaphor is not in language at all, but in the way we conceptualize one mental domain in terms of another. The metaphor is not just - 174 -


a matter of language, but of thought and reason. For him, the language is secondary. Thus, metaphor is absolutely central to ordinary natural language semantics and not merely the typical poetic style of expression. Metaphor is the main and inherent component of human being’s normal, conventional way of comprehending and conceptualizing the world, and that our daily behaviour reflects our metaphorical understanding of experience. In this sense, metaphor is not merely a particular word or expression, rather it is the ontological mapping across conceptual domains. Lakoff (1993) also comes up with the idea that metaphor allows us to understand a relatively abstract or inherently unstructured subject matter in terms of a more concrete, or at least a more structured subject matter. It is not surprising to know that Brandes (1980, p. 8) has also arrived at the idea that metaphor relates and represents abstract, unclear, or unfamiliar entities by the concrete realities of the daily existence. He adds, linking two distinct domains, not only helps to make the unfamiliar familiar but thereby it also influences the feelings of the listener and audience.By doing this, it operates to provide culturally acceptable outlet for the frustrations, tensions, and other feelings that cannot be expressed directly. Analyzing the relation between ideology and metaphor networks, Kimmel (2004) argues that metaphors are shapers of ideology. Moreover, conceptual metaphors delimit cultural discourse as an epistemic function. In line with Kimmel, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) argue that our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of what we think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical. Therefore, they further add that metaphors configure how we perceive, how we think and what we do, what we experience and then, ultimately affect our life and the future. It is also because particular metaphors pave the way for the portrayal of phenomenon in a particular direction through hiding and highlighting; the usage of metaphors hide some aspects of the things presented while - 175 -


highlighting the other aspects of the very things. Hellsten (2002) characterizes this as ‘politics of metaphor’ which is intended to cover the metaphorical processes of both naturalizing certain views on issues at the expense of others. The usage of similar proverbs to present a social phenomenon reflects or connotes an ideological similarity of those who have been using the proverbs (Koenigsberg, 2007). To substantiate his claim, Koenigsberg has compared the metaphors used to denote and describe capitalism and Jews by Lenin and Hitler respectively. He states that both of them had presented the image of the enemy as a “parasite” or “blood sucker” attacking and threatening to destroy the body politic. He regards that the metaphors contained within these statements (which occur repeatedly in the rhetoric of Hitler and Lenin) are nearly identical. Hitler viewed the Jewish enemy in a similar way as Lenin viewed the capitalist enemy. The ideology of Nazism and Lenin’s ideology of Communism revolved around binary: absolutely good German nation vs. absolutely destructive or evil Jews and “the people” conceived as fundamentally virtuous and healthy vs. “the capitalist,” working toward the decomposition and destruction of people and nations. In order to keep the national organism from decomposing, the diseased parts of the body politic, capitalists and Jews respectively, had to be amputated or removed. Sally Wyatt (2004) examined how metaphors can influence public debate, policy, and theory. As an entity with the properties of social situatedness, metaphors influence not only an individual per se, rather the individual as a member of the social milieu. Therefore, its power to influence goes even up to the public sphere. In addition, Hellsten (2002) adds metaphors have flexible uses and formulations, which also allows novelties to question them. Metaphors could be used not only to strengthen existing views but also to question them. Providing common grounds for debate and flexibility in their use, metaphors allow questioning of existing views. Through the distinction of metaphor theories - 176 -


in two types, Indurkhya (1992, pp.1-5) presents their functions into two categories: reflecting already existing similarities, and emphasizing the role of metaphors in creating similarities. This distinction points to the function of language as reflecting reality or creating reality (Hill & Mannheim, 1992). Keeping the tradition of analyzing language of politics as an object of study, Moreno (2008) analyzed the metaphors used by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez over the period of nine years, from his first year in the office in 1999 through 2007. He analyzes why individuals choose particular kinds of metaphors to construe the situation as reality in a particular way, which ultimately shapes the form of the kind of solution the person wants to construe. He sheds light on Chavez’s efforts to construct and legitimize his political project known as the Venezuelan Revolution. In addition, he has also found that shift in the choice of a kind of metaphors over the years shows the intent of selecting specific metaphors. It is because in cases of multiple metaphors, choosing a particular metaphor over other frames a topic in such a way that some aspects of the target domain are highlighted and others are hidden. Some anthropologists have explored the terrain of metaphors in their efforts to analyze health and illness situation. Markovic (2006) regards metaphors as useful for exploring health care experiences of women with gynaecological cancer. Van der Geest and Whyte (1989) have claimed that metaphors are useful to grasp “reality” and to see the world in a certain way in specific contexts. Anthropologists, or to put it broadly, people doing ethnography have dealt with metaphors while portraying particular groups of people. By disciplinary orientation, anthropologists are inclined to present the reality as perceived by the people or group(s) under study. This is why anthropologists have established and followed the tradition of learning local language(s) to understand people’s culture and context from as much closer as they can experience and see it. To substantiate that they have tried their best to view - 177 -


local culture from the latter’s emic perspective, ethnographers preferably choose traditional concepts and terms relevant for the study topic and/or to portray that in the holistic way. Among the various attempts to claim that they have been able to reach into the deeper and different layers of the meanings, ethnographers tend to pick up the metaphors which they come across in their conversations with local people. These metaphors are helpful to portray the situation or phenomena in a way the local people would prefer to present it. Metaphors also assist ethnographers to ‘grasp reality’ and present the subjective interpretation of an actor in his/her own context. When it is commonly understood and agreed that metaphor is meant to understand the unknown journeying through the known, and then the sources of metaphor are most likely fall within the domain of what could be considered as the relatively known or familiar arena. I do believe that it is not simply a matter of known versus unknown but the familiarity could be seen in relative sense. Besides, the kind of metaphor these Nepali women choose also depends upon the motive of the use of a particular metaphor. Portraying something as familiar and the other one(s) as unfamiliar depends upon the intent for which the metaphor is devised; whether to reinterpret, to question or not to bear with the granted meaning. Sometimes, the source of metaphor could be from the field which is given utmost importance among the members of the society. For instance, the body of Christ is one of the significant sources of metaphors in Western society (McNabb, 1932). In Nepali context of polytheism, different gods and goddesses may also become the dominant source of metaphor. Adding to such basket, Mary Douglas (1966) has pointed out that living organisms in one form or another function as a root metaphor. In addition to body and animals as living organisms, the house has also been known as a main source of metaphor (Douglas, 1996, Turner, 1967). Machines - 178 -


and, more recently, computers have become the source of metaphors in mechanized societies (Ortner, 1973). Whereas, the large numbers of metaphors that have brought up from my studies in this article are from agriculture and natural environment. Grown up in an agro-pastoral society, engaging with the natural environment, these women compare and represent their situation with some components of it. As situated in local socio-economic milieu, it is obvious and understandable that they have become the dominant source of metaphor, the known arena. Taking above reviewed literature in consideration, this article adopts the views that metaphors are meant for journeying from known to the terrain of unknown. Some words, concepts and images help us to proceed towards such unknown zone. Here, the term known and unknown refer not only in absolute sense of having or lack of knowledge about something. Rather, the demarcation is based on the intent of the person about what he/ she wants to take as known and through which she intends to illuminate the unknown. In doing so, reinterpretation of meaning contain in the entity presented as unknown becomes inevitable. In the very moment illuminating a certain meaning, I have realized that, metaphors may contribute to hide other sides of the phenomenon. Everyday Use of Metaphors In the course of my conversations, I have realized that women use different kinds of metaphors to delineate their life and situation. The kinds of metaphors they use also reflect their place in gendered social spaces. Metaphors reflect and represent, though not always desired, their feminine identity, which ultimately, as Geertz (1973) says, acts as a ‘model for’ the maintenance of womanhood in their social space (p.93). The metaphoric properties of everyday discourse, as Merten and Schwartz (1982) argue, shape the meaning of their social experience.

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Depiction of Life and Body Conventionally, women are considered and treated as the second sex in large segments of Nepali society. They are supposed to be assimilative to their male counterparts inside the house. In such circumstances, women have realized the need to be patient and tolerant. Equating their situation with that of the earth, women frequently used this metaphorical expression-women are like earth. Many people walk over her and some of them spit. (Chhori manchhe bhaneko prithvi jastai ho. Dherai manchhe hidchhan ra thukchhan pani). The earth bears this patiently. How can a woman not tolerate at least a bit? Women who have found themselves at the margin of society because of their social, economic or cultural situation, for example, being a widow and poor, think that people do ‘pakhalne’of them, i.e. defamation by people such as relatives, neighbours and community members. The people who defame them are not strangers, rather are people from their own circle, significant others. Here, the literal meaning of pakhalnu is to wash or to clean. Ironically, when it is used as a metaphor, it conveys the negative connotation to wipe out their image, status or social stability. The most common metaphors used by displaced war widows to explain their situation is comparing their strength with that of animals without horns--Sing Nabhaeko Janawar Ra Logne Nabhaeko Aaimai Ustai Ho--a woman without a husband is equal to an animal without horns. Widows are considered as weak as hornless animals, those who cannot protect themselves. On the other hand, others compare their life with that of Jindagi Barkhako Bhel bhayo-the surged floods in the rainy season. Their life was moving smoothly. The death of their husband and its consequences led to sudden and astonishing changes to their life, with disastrous effects (Dahal, 2010). There is hovering uncertainty about how it will end and they also do not know about how long it may go. To portray such situation, they choose the analogy of flood in the - 180 -


rainy season to show the turning point in their life which had eventually brought catastrophic outcomes in their lives. Following the death of a husband, a woman often feels as if the most crucial part of herself has gone and the remnant and thus life itself is empty and extraneous (Parkes and Weiss, 1983, Parkes, 1972). It is because in these areas a married woman’s self is understood indispensably with that of her marital status. The widows I spoke confirmed this. Most of them felt that after the death of their husbands, their individual life has become curtailed, wretched and of no value. As if they had been thrown away from the sky or had rolled down from the hill were the feeling often came into their mind. They generally use the metaphor of “falling down” to narrate their experience of losing the husband forever. This metaphor can be taken as both the process and consequences of widowhood they have experienced. As a process, it indicates the short span of time in which they became widow. Whereas, as a consequence, it refers to the baseless stage one has to endure through after losing a husband and the feeling of broken heart. These widows suggested that they had lost everything in their life in the form of their husband. Their life became hollow. Referring to their body and pointing towards its uselessness, they claimed they are left as Mudho, a huge piece of unused/useless wood. In this, they understood their body not merely as an individual body rather as a social body (Scheper-Hughes & Lock, 1998) in relation and affected by the decade-long war that pushed them into this situation. Through this metaphor, they were comparing their body with dead things. Confirming to the figurative meaning of their choice of metaphor, some of them had even wanted to die. In Nepali context, people in general use this metaphor to denote a body, which have not been used in a way as they had wished. Through the use of this metaphor, they are pointing to the need of meaningful life; not only absence of death rather it should be meaningful and with quality. - 181 -


Young widows, in particular war widows, who were married recently and their husband was in search of employment or about to have stable source of income stated that their “life had been destroyed before getting started”. They have experienced that their life began to cease from their control and move in an undesired direction. Others argued that following the loss of their husband they are “living as the dead”. They cannot consider their life better than that of a dead body. They have come up with such feelings mainly because of the emerging stigma towards their widowhood situation. The opposing conflicting political forces, the powerful bodies (Scheper-Hughes and Lock, 1998), have brought them into a situation in which they are comparing themselves with a dead body. Equating death with the quality of life, their state of living represents the high degree of social suffering they are enduring. Cannot Say Directly, Euphemise with Metaphors Reflecting upon the prevalent stigma of talking about sex and sexuality, in their conversations, people prefer not to use the Nepali terms, which directly convey the meaning of copulation. Instead, people euphemise with different metaphors and pronouns as a ‘culturally acceptable outlet’ (Brandes, 1980, p.8). “Doing this/that” (not to refer to the previously mentioned terms rather to mention the sexual intercourse), “sleeping with a woman/man” (wife/husband), “ploughing”, “making/doing luv”, “to go to wife”, “a man (husband) goes/comes to a woman (wife)” are some of the common terms/phrases, having higher degree of culturally accepted outlets, which people use even in the public. Confirming such unstated normative practices, Thule Danuwar, husband of a sixty year old woman who have had a uterine prolapse says, “Three years ago, I came to know about her POP disease while doing that”. Instead of using pronouns to refer to already mentioned nouns, Thule Danuwar uses it as a metaphor.

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When a female research assistant from our research team talked to a Danuwar lady in her early fifties from Kabhre district about her experience of post-surgery (of pelvic organ prolapse) sexuality, she depicted her experience of aggressive male sexuality and female submission to that. It is the man, who wants to “come” (auna khojchhan) forcefully even just after twenty five days of delivery. What can a woman, moreover, a sutkeri, woman who recently gave birth do about that (Lognemanchhe ko jat pachchis din dekhinai jabarjasti auna khojchhan aimaiko tyasmathi pani sutkeriko kehi lagdaina)? A simple verb “come” which denotes the physical mobility of the body towards the person, object or place has been used here to refer to sexual act of intercourse which she otherwise would not have mentioned directly. Here, the reference of twenty five is also an allegorical in meaning rather than the exact days after the delivery. It simply denotes to the period of time immediate after the delivery. Her narrative also contains the weak and vulnerable situation of a woman during the certain stage of her life when she is further unable to negotiate her sexuality with her husband. Another Brahmin woman in her early thirties from Dhading district has a different experience regarding early sexual intercourse after delivery. She confessed that both of us were immature and did not know that “he should not have come” after 2-3 weeks of the delivery (Sutkeri vayako pandhra-bish din mai logne manchhe aunu nahune raichha thaha vayana hami dui jananai allare pariyo). She regarded this as a collective immaturity of both the couple. She also used the same metaphor “come” to denote copulation. In her case, coming of her husband was not forceful. In spite of such a wide spread stigma to talk about sex and genitals, paradoxically, sex is at the centre of spouse relations. As some of the phrases imply, some of the terms used to refer to sex are so general that they are used to denote the mere physical mobility of a person. For instance, “coming to” (a wife referring - 183 -


to her husband) and “going to” (a husband referring to his act) are most common phrases. It reflects the long tradition of lack of physical proximity of the husband and his wife in traditional extended Nepali families, where, husband could usually meet his wife only at night, while sleeping together. Along with the changes in the family structure and size, though there have been significant alterations in this practice, however, the common less erotic terms to denote the sexual intercourse are still the same. Metaphors can also derive from geography. Such metaphors can allow us to symbolically approach the restricted zone, considering the central meaning that it can carries. So, the core area, restricted by socio-cultural norms, values and ideas based on religious grounds, is approached through the peripheral zone where the latter do not strictly apply. In the days to come, along with increased secular education and other social dynamism, the religious ideologies based on restricted core zones seem to be shrinking, allowing the relaxation of talking about sex and sexuality. Or, instead, people may choose other different kinds of metaphors. Inevitability in Health/Illness Narration Metaphor and analogy have long been recognized as crucial for understanding medical reasoning and discourses. Montgomery (1996) has stated the inevitability of metaphor use to communications among professionals, at the highest level of research, with patients or in popular discussion. He argues that modern Western medical thinking and research are organized around two sets of fundamental conceptual metaphors: the first, ‘‘biomilitary’’ metaphors, representing disease and the body’s response to it in terms of ‘‘attack’’ and ‘‘defense’’; the second, bioinformationist metaphors, portraying the body, in both health and sickness, as a communication system operating in terms of ‘‘transmitters’’, ‘‘messages’’, ‘‘encoding’’, ‘‘receptors’’, and so on. - 184 -


Importance of metaphors has been identified to portray diseaseness and disruption in life, for instance, that caused by infertility (Becker, 1994). As Kirmayer (2008) has stated they are deployed in cultural systems of meaning to shape the experience of pain and suffering. For him, these are not only sites of access to another’s experience, but the vehicles through which our own experiences of pain and suffering are constructed, articulated and sustained. Additionally, metaphor can provide a cultural pedestal from which to reorder their lives. It is obvious that metaphors do not themselves reorganize thinking, however, they serve as vehicles for locating new meaning which eventually may lead to the rearranging of thinking in the areas beyond the level of individual body. As a cultural resource, metaphor is helpful to mediate disruptions enabling individual to recreate sense of continuity and to reconnect themselves to the social and cultural order. Pelvic organ prolapse is understood as ‘ang khasne rog’, prolapse of organ, in different parts of Nepal where we conducted our studies to understand different aspects of this disease. As this disease is related with reproductive and sexual organ, both men and women do not feel comfortable to talk openly about this illness. Therefore, people regard it as ‘lukuwa rog’, the hidden disease. There are many diseases in hidden form from individual’s gaze, however, people call hidden only to those related with sexual and reproductive organs. Moreover, they think that all the women feel ashamed to expose this hidden ailment (Yo lukuwa rog ho dekhauna laj manchhan sabai janale). It is important to note that people think that through the talk about it a certain image is constructed about the how people experience the particular. Talking about image of the ailment is inevitably linked with the organ in which this ailment is situated and connected with. This is the reason behind unwillingness of men and women to talk about this ailment and thereby expose this hidden disease through the metaphorical narratives about the illness. - 185 -


Sometimes, men and women use the same proverb to convey different meanings. Usually people use this proverb-kate ragat auchha nichare disha aauchha-meaning blood comes when it (here, male body) is cut and faeces comes when it (here, a male body) is squeezed-to show how/one is in a helpless/deprived situation such that he does not have anything other than his body parts and particle. This is contrary to how Anita Bhetawal is using this proverb to distinguish female body with that of male body. In her words, “monthly flowing out of menstrual blood from women body makes it different to that of men. This is also the root cause of stomach ache and other co-morbidities”. ‘Betha Lagnu’ is synonymous to another Nepali word which denotes chronic disease (Rog) or sometimes it is referred to general trouble or misfortune. Though he has not clearly mentioned about what kind of disease it is, Turner (1931) has defined ‘Betha’ as disease; illness; misfortune or trouble. Referring to delivery pain with that of ‘Betha’ can be interpreted as the reflection and presentation of complexities and possible danger related with delivery. In this case, the use ‘Betha’ indicates the vulnerable situation of women undergoing delivery and the risk associated with it. The tendency to look for health problems through biomedicine is increasing in various parts of Nepal among different social categories of people. Our study on uterine prolapse has also confirmed this. Women are looking for surgical solutions for this ailment. One of the women we interviewed narrated that she was satisfied with the operation when our research team met her. She had been relieved of back pain and she felt that her body became ‘light’. She felt as if she got rid of a ‘heavy load’. She even regretted not having her operation 10 years ago. Living in an agrarian society whereby her routine activities involves carrying heavy loads everyday, she chose the phrase ‘heavy load’ to refer to the burden of disease. Another woman from the same area in Sindhupalchok district equated the relief from the burden of the - 186 -


disease with the analogy of getting rid of thorns (kado nikaleko jastai bhaeko chha) from her body. Through metaphors people explain their body and bodily situation, the most proximate terrain of one’s own body, the known, to the others. They have to communicate others (e.g. physicians) who the ego knows would regard other’s body as unknown. Dis-easeness, discomfort or abnormality in this terrain further pushes it into the arena of an unknown zone. Not surprisingly, these latter situations may sometimes compel women to regard their own body as unknown and making them understand it metaphorically. It is essential ‘to articulate illness experience through the metaphors’ (Kirmayer, 1992), as it serves as ‘effectively related language and communication of feelings and physiology’ (Good, 1998). Conclusions: Comprehension, Reflection and Influencing Realities The above presented discussions show ‘language as a form of social action’ (Schieffelin, 1990, p. 16). In their conversations, people understand not only the shared meaning but also the ones reinterpreted by another person. Therefore, meanings are coconstructed by the participants in a conversation. People consider both “text and context” (Duranti and Goodwin, 1992) to understand or to construe meaning of the term used as metaphor. Metaphor euphemises the culturally unacceptable linguistic presentation of sex and sexual organs through everyday metaphors. This practice is very much embedded in Nepali culture. A crucial component of language, metaphor is used as a ‘cultural resource’ (Schieffelin, 1990, p.16) in specific social context. People choose particular kinds of words and phrases as metaphor to communicate something or to reinterpret the existing meaning conveyed by any words or phrases.

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Metaphors act as a useful linguistic vehicle to the journey of unknown through the known. In conversational context, it acts as a medium to make things comprehensible and understandable to the other party. Nevertheless, facilitating the cognitive journey towards the unknown can also be for the actor himself/herself. While comprehending any phenomena, situation or disease through the metaphor, it acts as a creative cultural and linguistic tool to understand life and body through the semantic linking of the known to the unknown. Metaphor is pervasive in everyday discourse of the Nepali women which they use to comprehend, present, reinterpret or reflect their situation.Not only metaphors facilitate in representation of self and situation but it highlights certain aspects while simultaneously suppressing the other aspects. It influences actors understand or construe their situation and self in a particular way. Thus, it provides flexibility for the person to present himself/herself in a way s/he wants within a cultural framework. Metaphor can provide agency, as Ahearn (2001, p.130) puts forth, it provides the individual ‘the socioculturally mediated capacity to act’. Understanding and constructing meaning are nevertheless not static phenomena. Choice of a metaphor plays crucial role on how to understand or what meaning to assign. This process is so much spontaneous that people can do this during the process of conversation, without interrupting its “natural flow”. The metaphors which are used to reinterpret the understanding of body, life, and spousal relations are often rooted in different sources. In the case of metaphors illustrated in this paper, all of these domains are not only quite familiar to these women but they also have lived through them. In this way, sometimes, for various reasons, as they want to question the granted meaning of these domains they want to ‘interpret and reinterpret’ (Henry, 1999) them through the use of different analogies and proverbs which ultimately shapes the shared world of subjective realities. While reflecting upon the wider usage of metaphors, it becomes clear that it is common to use metaphors in understanding the - 188 -


world, experiencing the situation and communicating particular phenomena with the fellow human being. In certain cultural contexts, when it is difficult to deal on certain subjects such as sex and sexuality, people use euphemistic metaphors. In such situation, metaphors not only facilitate communication but also become essential parts of societal interaction. On the other hand, wider usage of metaphors in Nepali society leads to some methodological implications. In his/her effort to grasp the meaning of conversations in ethnographic studies, a researcher comes across several occasions of metaphor usage. Understanding metaphors in the course of the interaction itself becomes a part of the analysis process. Moreover, often metaphors also summarize the essence, reflect core arguments, and stand as turning points in the conversation process. All these factors show the significance of comprehending metaphors during ethnographic endeavours; through metaphors we can approach the culture as a whole. Acknowledgements The draft version of this article was presented at the Second Annual Conference of Nepali Anthropology held in December 1618, 2016 in Kathmandu, Nepal. I am indebted to the participants for their constructive remarks and suggestions. I am grateful to Dr. Rebecca Oxley, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow from Durham University, UK, Sjaak van der Geest, an Emeritus Professor of Medical Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam, and Dr. Binod Pokharel, Professor of Anthropology, Central Department of Anthropology, Tribhuvan University, for going through the manuscript and their crucial suggestions for further analysis and interpretation. However, the prevailing shortcomings are mine. I am equally grateful to the Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP), Hendrik van Deventer Foundation of Deventer Hospital, the Netherlands and UNDP/UN Women for providing financial support to carry out respective researches on the basis of which this article has been developed.

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Contemporary Nepali Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Reader

Editors

Laya Prasad Uprety Binod Pokharel Janak Rai Suresh Dhakal Mukta Singh Lama

Central Department Of Anthropology University Campus Tribhuvan University Kirtipur, Kathmandu March, 2018

CONTEMPORARY NEPALI SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY: A READER Published by Central Department of Anthropology University Campus Tribhuvan University Kirtipur, Kathmandu (1)4334832 A Peer-reviewed Publication

© Authors: March, 2018 No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the authors and publisher. ISBN: 978-9937-0-3942-0 Price: NRs. 750.00 Printed by: Tribhuvan University Press Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal Phone: 977-1-4331320, 4331321