The Salt without the Girl

Negotiating Embodied Identity as an Agender Person with Cystic Fibrosis

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5934809
AutoresAlexandra Ch Nowakowski (0000-0002-9072-2482, Florida State University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2019
Volumen8
Número3
Páginas78
Fecha de publicación2019-03-03
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial Sciences (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2076-0760 • E-ISSN: 2076-0760
EditorialMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/socsci8030078
OpenAlexW2911367539
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas82

In this manuscript, I build and expand on prior work by myself (Nowakowski, 2016) and others exploring the dynamics of embodiment among people with chronic health conditions. Specifically, I critically investigate the intersecting social and medical elements of responses to bodies perceived as too thin and otherwise lacking in physical ability, using my own experiences of living and aging with cystic fibrosis (CF) as a case example. In these explorations, I center gendered identity and its intersection with disabling physical illness. I do so by using my own lived experiences as autoethnographic anchor points to guide critical review of key concepts from the nexus of these two content areas. I focus throughout on exploring how others' reactions to a frail-looking body often constitute a form of forced gendering via the narratives people attempt to construct for why a person's body appears that way. The title of the manuscript supports this framework by referencing three cornerstones of patient experience in the CF community: the general trend of patients having salty skin due to the pathology of the disease, a prior embodiment project called Salty Girls (Pettigrew, 2012) that engages this idea, and the more abstract concept of "saltiness" in describing the grit marginalized people display in responding to microaggressions

Aesthetics · Construct (python library · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Identity (music · Narrative · Negotiation · Psychology of self · Sociology · Child Nutrition and Feeding Issues · Cystic Fibrosis Research Advances · Family and Disability Support Research · Psychology · Social Psychology