Performing illness and health: the humanistic value of cancer narratives.
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Date
2012
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Western Cape.
Abstract
Cancer is a potent example of a disease that grips and plays out on the body in ways that are both visceral and visual. This
paper explores issues of disease and disorder, functioning and malfunctioning in bodies marked by cancer and a sense of non-belonging.
By working through the heuristic device of ‘narrative’, the paper argues for the humanistic value and currency of the
personal (subjective) illness narrative in social science scholarship in being able to convey to audiences the emotional and
existential complexities of cancer, beyond the merely medical. The paper, by drawing on ethnographic narratives of a small
group of women with cancer and their inscriptive treatment practices, probes the shifting and constructed concepts of a so-called
‘healthy’ body and ‘ill’ body as experienced by the women, and attempts to show that a recognition of these experiences
of the physical body is potentially able to contribute to shaping more compassionate, person-centred health care models of
illness and healing.
Description
Keywords
Cancer--Patients--Care., Cancer in women--Psychological aspects., Cancer--Psychological aspects., Cancer--Treatment.
Citation
Naidu, M. 2012. Performing illness and health: the humanistic value of cancer narratives. Anthropology Southern Africa, 35, 71-80.