Embodiment and the foundation of biographical disruption

Athena Engman

Social Science & Medicine, 2019, vol. 225, issue C, 120-127

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.

Keywords: Biographical disruption; Embodiment; Organ transplantation; Merleau-Ponty; Chronic illness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:225:y:2019:i:c:p:120-127

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DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.02.019

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