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This paper argues that a new perspective is needed to further improve our understanding of the problem and suggests that the methods and theories of anthropology, with its focus on nuances and subtleties, can provide new insights. Data were generated from 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the UK including participant observation, semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Anthropology provides a unique way of approaching and understanding somatic symptoms and suggests that GWS symptom reporting can be seen as a form of communication. The work focuses on the sufferers' accounts, the symptoms themselves and the context within which we find them in order to better understand what was being expressed and commented upon. Although necessary to contextualize GWS through situating it among other emergent illnesses and widespread health beliefs, this paper shows there is a need to bring back the particular. This work seeks to make sense of the cultural circumstances, specific and general, which gave rise to the illness.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1098\/rstb.2006.1828","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2006,3,31]],"date-time":"2006-03-31T13:59:18Z","timestamp":1143813558000},"page":"697-706","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":9,"title":["On being a Gulf veteran: an anthropological perspective"],"prefix":"10.1098","volume":"361","author":[{"given":"Susie","family":"Kilshaw","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anthropology, University College London, University of LondonGower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"175","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2006,3,24]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_2_2_1","unstructured":"Bakal D.A Psychology and medicine: psychobiological dimensions of health and illness. 1979 London UK:Tavistock 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