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Boy Interrupted – Biographical disruption during the transition to adulthood
Author(s) -
Wedgwood Nikki,
Smith Louisa,
Hendl Tereza,
Shuttleworth Russell
Publication year - 2020
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 - 10.1111/1467-9566.12984
Subject(s) - life course approach , biography , ethnic group , psychology , developmental psychology , young adult , gender studies , refugee , gerontology , sociology , medicine , history , anthropology , archaeology , art history
Most studies on the gendered aspects of biographical disruption are predicated on adult experiences of chronic illness, often based on heterogeneous samples. This paper goes beyond typologies by analysing the life‐history case study of ‘Sam’, a 23‐year‐old Australian man raised in a refugee family, who developed a disabling chronic health condition at 15 years of age. The analysis illustrates how critical contextual factors like life‐phase, combine with powerful social structures like ethnicity and gender to shape Sam's experiences of, and responses to, biographical disruption. Even before the onset of any symptoms, Sam was railing against the marginal position he occupied in the Australian gender order as a young Asian man. With little guidance on how to adapt his biography to integrate his new differently functioning body, Sam's transition to adulthood stalls, and he becomes in effect, a boy interrupted.