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Is anybody there? Critical realism, chronic illness and the disability debate
Author(s) -
Williams Simon J.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9566.00184
Subject(s) - postmodernism , sociology of health and illness , critical realism (philosophy of perception) , mainstream , disability studies , identity (music) , sociology , critical theory , realism , epistemology , health care , psychoanalysis , psychology , aesthetics , gender studies , law , political science , philosophy
Taking as its point of departure the contested nature of the body, in mainstream theory and the sociology of health and illness alike, this paper seeks, albeit tentatively, to chart a critical realist alternative to these debates using the controversial terrain of chronic illness and disability as a case study. A critical realist approach, it is suggested, enables us to: (i) bring the biological body, impaired or otherwise, ‘back in’; (ii) relate the individual to society in a challenging, non‐conflationary or non ‘uni‐directional’ way; and (iii) rethink questions of identity, difference and the ethics of care through a commitment to real bodies andreal selves, real lives and real worlds. Within all this, it is argued,modern medicine does indeed, contra disability theory and postmodern calls for the pursuit of so‐called ‘arche‐health’, have a continuing role to play in the mitigation of human pain and suffering, including the realities of chronic disabling illness conditions and the associated ‘greying’ of Western populations.