Premium
Finding Order in David's Disorder
Author(s) -
Jervis Lori L.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
anthropology of consciousness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 1556-3537
pISSN - 1053-4202
DOI - 10.1525/ac.1997.8.2-3.97
Subject(s) - postmodernism , ethnography , michel foucault , power (physics) , sociology , psychoanalysis , order (exchange) , gender studies , psychology , epistemology , philosophy , anthropology , law , political science , politics , physics , finance , quantum mechanics , economics
This paper describes how I came to know a younger, mentally ill resident during fieldwork in an urban nursing home. I describe my efforts to establish a connection with this man, revealing the manner in which the academic and personal become fused in ethnographic research. In his discourse David conveys an unsettling universe filled with extreme power asymmetries, where he continually gravitates between the roles of victim and victimizer. His various identities are in a state of constant flux, at times blurring the boundaries of culturally recognized categories. While fragmentation and multiplicity are often glorified within postmodernism, I suggest that persons with psychosis may find them imprisoning rather than liberating.