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Deploying Normality

Cancer Survivor Identity and Authenticity in Ritual-like Practice

Bibliographic Data

ID4564493
AuthorsPlage (0000-0001-7217-3806, Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland, Indooroopilly, Australia, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume40
Issue5
Pages473-489
Publication date2021-07-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedical Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0145-9740 • E-ISSN: 1545-5882
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01459740.2021.1909582
PMID33847551
OpenAlexW3156197929
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited32

In scholarship on cancer survivorship, "normality" is discussed as a strategy to restore and maintain continuity of identity for the person with cancer. I interrogate the strategic deployment of "normality" in what I define as ritual-like practices by drawing on 20 narrative interviews and 455 photographs produced by study participants. The findings explore normality as outcome (being normal), practice (doing normality), and ethical standard (aspiring to normality). They indicate how sociocultural scripts such as the cancer survivor identity and authentic selfhood inflect what it means to be a "normal" person with cancer with repercussions for recognition in lived experience

Aesthetics · Art · Cancer · Cancer survivor · Cancer survivorship · Epistemology · Identity (music · Narrative · Normality · Normative · Population · Sociocultural evolution · Sociology · Survivorship curve · Anthropology · Cancer survivorship and care · Identity, Memory, and Therapy · Medicine · Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

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  • Ritual and Its Consequences

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    Open Access•Karen Kaiser•Social Science & Medicine•2008

  • The Bad Patient

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Unique citing works9
Citations per year1,8
Citation span2021 - 2025 (5)
Citation velocityrecent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 9
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