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Self, agency and the surgical collective: detachment.
- Source :
-
Sociology of Health & Illness . Jan2004, Vol. 26 Issue 1, p32-49. 18p. - Publication Year :
- 2004
-
Abstract
- In this article, I describe the socio-technical organisation of surgical rehabilitation. After having gone through surgical intervention, patients are implicated within various types of medical work aimed at adjusting their bodies to post-operative social and material environments. My argument is that the process of re-establishment of a 'self' is mediated through a re-disposition of agency in the socio-technical ensemble upon which the patient depends immediately after surgery.Drawing on one year of ethnographic fieldwork in a neurosurgical clinic, and theoretical resources from science and technology studies, this paper is an attempt to describe how, within surgical post-operative practices, the relational dynamics of social and material components endorsed within those practices may re-institute patients' sense of themselves, and re-organise their relationship with the world and other people. In surgery, the outcome of this dynamic process is the reorganisation of forms of agency for the patient. I will refer to this reorganisation as 'detachment'. It is my contention that this research may contribute to the literature on the experience of chronic illness by specifying the socio-technical conditions for the local achievement of self and agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *MEDICAL rehabilitation
*SURGERY
*MEDICINE
*MEDICAL care
*REHABILITATION
*SOCIOLOGY
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 01419889
- Volume :
- 26
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Sociology of Health & Illness
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 106729555
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9566.2004.00377.x