Hurricane Katrina, Family Trouble, and the Micro-politics of Suffering

This chapter examines a set of intellectual and ethical dilemmas that characterize the study of suffering. Drawing from two separate studies, one on the survivors of Hurricane Katrina and the other on middle-class parents whose children have an array of problems, we highlight the gap between sociological and self-referential claims to suffering. How do we conceptualize the experiences of people who appear to suffer but are reluctant to identify themselves as suffering? Should studies of suffering include the experiences of privileged people whose hardships seem comparatively trivial? By addressing these questions, we call attention to what we call “the micro-politics of suffering” and simultaneously address the interactional nature of suffering and scholars’ participation in the construction of what constitutes “legitimate” distress. We also consider what scholars might gain from comparing the lived experiences of seemingly disparate groups of sufferers.