The heritage of apartheid in South Africa is amongst others manifest in the multiple ways in which the population perceives and experiences suffering. The transition through which the state has developed into a democracy has revealed practices of inequality in how diseases are classified, understood and, treated, in an historical period in which access to medical technology is unequally distributed. The new Constitution and the new legislations have established new practices and explanations that cut across racial discrimination and health inequalities. In this article, I discuss symptoms of ?cramps?, ?fits?, ?epilepsy? and ?the shaking body?, as conditions that are classified differently within these multifaceted knowledge-systems, which in turn shape perception of body and person. The purpose is to discuss how these conditions are understood, explained, and acted upon and to analyse the ways in which such perceptions and classifications directly shape and govern people’s lives. I show how these conditions are interconnected with historical constructs which in contemporary South Africa are very much present in a re-establishment of a concept of ?ill-health?, thereby contributing to a situation where those who need supportive measures do not receive them.
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