Gray Zone Identity
An Autoethnographic Journey of Chronic Illness, Diagnostic Uncertainty, and Autoimmunity
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2387232 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nicole Defenbaugh (0000-0002-7249-5415, University of Health Sciences & Pharmacy in St. Louis, MO, USA) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 8-9 |
| Pages | 779-790 |
| Publication date | 2024-10-08 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Qualitative Inquiry (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1077-8004 • E-ISSN: 1552-7565 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/10778004241282298 |
| OpenAlex | W4403258212 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 35 |
The author explores what it means to live in a liminal space of medical uncertainty as a person with an autoimmune disease. Autoethnography enables the author to examine the emotional, cognitive, and physical response to being told that her ill body and identity exist in a clinical gray zone. The author coins the term "gray zone identity" to capture the uncertainty and anxiety that accompanied years of symptoms without a diagnosis. Traveling in and out of health care facilities in search of answers, the author learns that not all bodies can be clinically explained by medical language or biomedical tests. It is in the liminal space of diagnostic uncertainty where the author endeavors to understand how to embrace her gray zone identity
Aesthetics · Anxiety · Autoethnography · Epistemology · Gray (unit · Identity (music · Liminality · Psychiatry · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Anthropology · Clinical Reasoning and Diagnostic Skills · Empathy and Medical Education · Gender Studies · Medicine · Mental Health and Psychiatry · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
Evocative Autoethnography
The anxiety of not knowing
The Ontology of Oncology
Prenatal Care Use Among Women of Low Income
Social Identities across the Life Course
How and why do doctors communicate diagnostic uncertainty
Now as a Liminal Space, Writing as a Patchwork
My Sister’s Keeper
Through Madness and Back Again
A “Performative-I” Copresence
Gender, older female bodies and autoethnography
Victor Turner and liminality
As if I was a spacecraft returning to Earth's atmosphere. Expanding insights into illness narratives and childhood cancer through evocative autoethnography
Uncertainty Management Strategies in Communication About Urinary Tract Infections
The Ritual Process
Black Epistemologies and Blues Methodology
Under Erasure
Researching the Images of Evil Events
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |