Under Pressure: Living with Diabetes in Cairo

This article is based on 9 months of ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Cairo, Egypt during the years of 2015 and 2017 as part of a research project on the topic of type-2 diabetes. The article examines different understandings of the onset and treatment of type-2 diabetes across people in Cairo living with the condition and their healthcare providers. The article argues that those who are diagnosed with type-2 diabetes primarily relate their condition to experiences of ḍaghṭ (stress or pressure), above any other risk factors. This understanding clashes with healthcare providers who instead link type-2 diabetes primarily to obesity. The article exemplifies these different understandings of type-2 diabetes by drawing on the topic of food specifically, showing how the intake of food is not perceived by those diagnosed with type-2 diabetes as related to their condition in similar ways as is the case among their healthcare providers. As opposed to relating type-2 diabetes to matters of abundance and an excess consumption of food and calories, those in Cairo who are diagnosed with type-2 diabetes instead relate their condition to matters of deprivation and scarcity-as well as the experiences of ḍaghṭ brought on by such potential deprivation and scarcity.