Social suffering has been a fundamental theme of medical anthropology since medical systems have emerged through their active role in society, because of the importance of physical, emotional or mental distress in everyday life. The ethnographic attention given to suffering is essentially political, even at the level of a mere populist humanism. It requires solidarity and care on the part of the anthropology, because it directs analysis and observation towards those ‘categories close to experience... which have a prepotent practical relevance’ for the individuals being studied (Kleinman, Kleinman, 1991, p. 277).