: A cultural idiom of gender-based violence and structural inequalities in eastern Nicaragua.

For the Miskitu of Nicaragua, is a contagious illness that predominantly affects women. It is characterized by numerous psychosomatic symptoms, including headache, fear, aggressive behavior, loss of consciousness, and periods of rapid frenzy. Although has gained academic and public attention due to its unique cultural elements and perceived sexual aspects, little is known how the contextual and gender dimensions of are played out in relation to the socio-political context in the region. Based on 16 months of ethnographic work in the Nicaraguan Miskitu Coast, including semi-structured interviews (n = 20) and participant observation, this article documents a semantic shift in the embodied and symbolic language of a cultural idiom of distress. I show how (Miskitu spirit associated with illness and misfortune) and witchcraft are symbols that share cultural resonance in the Miskitu community, while gender violence discourse is a new language incorporated into the logic of this cultural idiom of distress. I argue that this semantic shift allows the individuals in this study to communicate local experiences of complex forms of structural inequalities (migration status, unemployment, ethnic identity) and gender-based violence that tend to be normalized as a ubiquitous cultural problem while preserving the broader socio-cultural meaning the represents. The ethnographic accounts of provide empirical data to unpack the unexplored contextual processes and local discourses that transform the meaning and logic of cultural idioms of distress at the individual level of experience.