Wrongdoing and Retribution: Children's Conceptions of Illness Causality in a Central Indian Village

This paper is a study of children's conceptions of illness causality. Based on ethnographic research in a central Indian tribal community, it is a response to the lack of systematic attention within mainstream anthropology on children, and within medical anthropology on children's understanding of illness causation. A combination of participant observation and structured interviews was used to examine local distinctions between 'natural' and 'supernatural' illness, which are underpinned by ideas about supernatural retribution. The focus in this paper is on how children learn and reason about such ideas, and on the processes by which they assume culpability for 'supernatural' illnesses. By arguing that children do not simply replicate adult conceptions about illness causality but instead apply their own experience to their understanding and representation of such ideas, this paper challenges taken-for-granted assumptions about the acquisition and reproduction of cultural knowledge.