Autopathographies: An investigation of personhood, power, and social suffering in first-hand accounts of illness
Investigation of the structure, purposes, and performative elements of illness narratives has formed a primary area of inquiry within medical anthropology for several decades. Illness narratives are frequently conceptualized as a means of communicating the illness experience and validating an altered or new position within the social group due to illness. Despite the emergence of online health resources, publication rates of book-length, self-written illness narratives, also referred to as autopathographies or illness memoirs, have become popular not only with fellow sufferers but often with a wider general audience, landing many such works on bestseller lists. Clearly, the impetus to share and the interest in reading illness narratives has not diminished, even with the advent of the internet as an instantaneous way to share illness experience.
Dr Rachel Hall-Clifford, who is based in the Department of Primary Health Care but affiliated with Medical Anthropology at the School of Anthropology, currently carries out research that queries the role autopathographies play in contemporary Western society, investigating the idea that they serve as palimpsets of older modalities and exploring how they integrate with newer mechanisms for communicating misfortune with a social group. Her project draws upon the 'Patients' Tales' autopathography collection of Professor Jeffrey Aronson and his earlier studies on autopathographies. Building on Arthur Kleinman's approach to social suffering, the current project will analyze books from the Patients' Tales collection within the following categories: health-seeking behaviours; the treatment process; institutions of health care; techniques of transformation; treatment evaluation; presentation of self; responses from the social network; and the use of metaphor in illness accounts. The research is scheduled to continue through November 2011, with an aim of extension to a second phase which will involve fieldwork to investigate the role of book-length illness narratives in the conveyance of information about particular illnesses and communicating the lived experience of ill health in contemporary society.