IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v225y2019icp120-127.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Embodiment and the foundation of biographical disruption

Author

Listed:
  • Engman, Athena

Abstract

The concept of biographical disruption has now enjoyed nearly 40 years of use in medical sociology. This paper argues that taking an embodied approach to biographical disruption helps to explain the concept's enduring efficacy. Drawing on the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and contemporary theories of embodiment inspired by his phenomenology, this paper advances that biographical disruption involves, in the first instance, a disruption to the ability to enact an embodied orientation towards the world. Biographical disruption does not, from this perspective, result from illness as such, but from the ways that illness impinges on one's physical ability to engage with daily life.

Suggested Citation

  • Engman, Athena, 2019. "Embodiment and the foundation of biographical disruption," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 120-127.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:225:y:2019:i:c:p:120-127
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.02.019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953619300863
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.02.019?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Apesoa-Varano, Ester Carolina & Barker, Judith C. & Hinton, Ladson, 2015. "Shards of sorrow: Older men's accounts of their depression experience," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 1-8.
    2. Gisquet, Elsa, 2008. "Cerebral implants and Parkinson's disease: A unique form of biographical disruption?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(11), pages 1847-1851, December.
    3. Richardson, Jane C. & Ong, Bie Nio & Sim, Julius, 2006. "Is chronic widespread pain biographically disruptive?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(6), pages 1573-1585, September.
    4. Lowton, Karen & Hiley, Chris & Higgs, Paul, 2017. "Constructing embodied identity in a ‘new’ ageing population: A qualitative study of the pioneer cohort of childhood liver transplant recipients in the UK," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 1-9.
    5. Monaghan, Lee F. & Gabe, Jonathan, 2016. "Embodying health identities: A study of young people with asthma," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 1-8.
    6. Jutel, Annemarie, 2016. "Truth and lies: Disclosure and the power of diagnosis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 92-98.
    7. Navon, Liora & Morag, Amira, 2004. "Liminality as biographical disruption: unclassifiability following hormonal therapy for advanced prostate cancer," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(11), pages 2337-2347, June.
    8. Whiteford, Linda M. & Gonzalez, Lois, 1995. "Stigma: The hidden burden of infertility," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 27-36, January.
    9. Trusson, Diane & Pilnick, Alison & Roy, Srila, 2016. "A new normal?: Women's experiences of biographical disruption and liminality following treatment for early stage breast cancer," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 121-129.
    10. Bell, Sarah L. & Tyrrell, Jessica & Phoenix, Cassandra, 2016. "Ménière's disease and biographical disruption: Where family transitions collide," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 177-185.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nelsensius Klau Fauk & Lillian Mwanri & Hailay Abrha Gesesew & Paul Russell Ward, 2023. "Biographical Reinvention: An Asset-Based Approach to Understanding the World of Men Living with HIV in Indonesia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(16), pages 1-16, August.
    2. Anita Ghai & Suchaita Tenneti, 2024. "An Autoethnographic Reflection of COVID-19 and/as Biographical Disruption," Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Centre for Women's Development Studies, vol. 31(1), pages 43-60, February.
    3. Barry, L.E. & O'Neill, S. & Heaney, L.G. & O'Neill, C., 2021. "Stress-related health depreciation: Using allostatic load to predict self-rated health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    4. Emmanuel F. Koku, 2024. "The Effect of Stigma and Social Networks on Role Expectations among African Immigrants Living with HIV," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 21(6), pages 1-16, June.
    5. Campbell, Chadwick K., 2021. "Structural and intersectional biographical disruption: The case of HIV disclosure among a sample of black gay and bisexual men," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tan, Catherine D., 2018. "“I'm a normal autistic person, not an abnormal neurotypical”: Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis as biographical illumination," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 161-167.
    2. Weckesser, Annalise & Denny, Elaine, 2017. "Re-working biographies: Women's narratives of pregnancy whilst living with epilepsy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 110-117.
    3. Saunders, Benjamin & Bartlam, Bernadette & Artus, Majid & Konstantinou, Kika, 2018. "Biographical suspension and liminality of Self in accounts of severe sciatica," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 218(C), pages 28-36.
    4. Karen Strickland & Allison Worth & Catriona Kennedy, 2017. "The liminal self in people with multiple sclerosis: an interpretative phenomenological exploration of being diagnosed," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(11-12), pages 1714-1724, June.
    5. Paul Stenner & Raffaele De Luca Picione, 2023. "A Theoretically Informed Critical Review of Research Applying the Concept of Liminality to Understand Experiences with Cancer: Implications for a New Oncological Agenda in Health Psychology," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(11), pages 1-21, May.
    6. Standing, Holly C. & Rapley, Tim & MacGowan, Guy A. & Exley, Catherine, 2017. "‘Being’ a ventricular assist device recipient: A liminal existence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 141-148.
    7. Anthony Beudaert & Jean-Philippe Nau, 2020. "La vulnérabilité des consommateurs en situation de handicap : les apports d’une prise en compte du temps," Post-Print hal-03002006, HAL.
    8. Joyce, Kelly & Jeske, Melanie, 2020. "Using autoimmune strategically: Diagnostic lumping, splitting, and the experience of illness," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    9. Elisabeth Dahlborg Lyckhage & Anna Gardvik & Helena Karlsson & Jenny Törner Mulari & Ina Berndtsson, 2015. "Young Women With Anorexia Nervosa," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(1), pages 21582440155, March.
    10. Ya’arit Bokek-Cohen, 2020. "Couples Who Disobeyed the Caste-Like Marital Prohibitions in Israel," Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Centre for Women's Development Studies, vol. 27(1), pages 9-32, February.
    11. Phoenix, Cassandra & Bell, Sarah L., 2019. "Beyond “Move More”: Feeling the Rhythms of physical activity in mid and later-life," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 231(C), pages 47-54.
    12. Donkor, Ernestina S. & Sandall, Jane, 2007. "The impact of perceived stigma and mediating social factors on infertility-related stress among women seeking infertility treatment in Southern Ghana," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(8), pages 1683-1694, October.
    13. Boyle, Louise E., 2019. "The (un)habitual geographies of Social Anxiety Disorder," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 231(C), pages 31-37.
    14. Smit, Anri & Coetzee, Bronwynè Jo’sean & Roomaney, Rizwana & Bradshaw, Melissa & Swartz, Leslie, 2019. "Women's stories of living with breast cancer: A systematic review and meta-synthesis of qualitative evidence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 231-245.
    15. Lowton, Karen & Higgs, Paul, 2022. "Understanding the role of scars in adults' narratives of childhood liver transplantation: A sociological perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 294(C).
    16. Thomeer, Mieke Beth & Reczek, Corinne & Umberson, Debra, 2015. "Relationship dynamics around depression in gay and lesbian couples," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 38-46.
    17. Galetsi, P. & Katsaliaki, K. & Kumar, S., 2019. "Values, challenges and future directions of big data analytics in healthcare: A systematic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    18. Alicja Malina & Dorota Suwalska-Barancewicz, 2021. "Comparison of Early-Stage Mothers and Childless Women Seeking Pregnancy: Experienced Stress, Resilience and Satisfaction with Relationship with the Partner," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-14, March.
    19. Nahar, Papreen, 2010. "Health seeking behaviour of childless women in Bangladesh: An ethnographic exploration for the special issue on: Loss in child bearing," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(10), pages 1780-1787, November.
    20. Philip Kinghorn & Angela Robinson & Richard Smith, 2015. "Developing a Capability-Based Questionnaire for Assessing Well-Being in Patients with Chronic Pain," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 120(3), pages 897-916, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:225:y:2019:i:c:p:120-127. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.