دانلود کتاب خطر و سازگاری در یک شهر خوشه سرطان

Winesburg, Ohio is a 1919 collection of short stories by Sherwood Anderson. The fictional town of Winesburg is based on the writer’s memories of his own town, Clyde, Ohio—the town that is also the focus of this book. The prevailing mood in Winesburg, Ohio is one of misunderstanding and loneliness, restlessness, dissatisfaction, and disillusionment. There is no real sense of community in this fictional town; most of the characters in Winesburg are portrayed in a moment of crisis, and no one is able to achieve meaningful understanding of another person. As observed by journalist Kristina Smith’s Ohio Magazine article “ ‘Winesburg, Ohio’ at 100,” it’s not surprising that residents of Clyde were not always proud of Anderson’s scandalous portrayal of the town.1 Early in my fieldwork I wondered if there was something about the town that still fostered the absence of community that Anderson so accurately captures. This assumption was contradicted by resident after resident who ecstatically told me that Clyde was the best community in which to live. Nonetheless, I see an interplay between structural forces and something more intimate—a passivity that is not easy to describe considering the health crisis faced by the community. It is characterized by fear of the loss of security and fear of the unknown—both material and social. In some manifestations, it is characterized by a lack of loyalty that makes for shifty alliances. In others, it appears as loneliness so profound that their connection to others is compromised altogether. This book is an attempt, in the complex field of qualitative data, to edge closer to an understanding of how life politics are negotiated. About 1,000 suspected cancer clusters are annually reported to state health departments. When I ask my students about disease clusters, they often share stories about perceived clusters of illness in or near their hometowns. My hometown is no exception. My brother remembers the summer the cornfield was sprayed next to our house and the “whole neighborhood talking about their throats.” Another relative has a father with MS, who grew up on a road where three other people were diagnosed with the same disease. My mother, who taught art at a public high school, had more than one student from the same neighborhood present with a rare form of bone cancer. My father was diagnosed with cancer, and we suspected that it was linked to Agent Orange exposure when he was stationed in the DMZ in Korea during the Vietnam War. Years later, the federal government would recognize this connection, but my questions about the relationship between toxins and disease and adaptation to illness grew. These experiences reinforced my belief that peripheral issues related to disease are profound. The social, behavioral, economic, cultural, and environmental variations in health and disease are as important as biomedical ones.