Fixing Unfixable Bodies

Expectations and Metaphors of the Body Among Patients and Surgeons in Elective Orthopaedic Surgery in Denmark

Bibliographic Data

ID3638813
AuthorsSimone Grytter (0000-0003-2340-4051, University of Copenhagen, corresponding author), Adam Bencard (0000-0002-2500-9023, University of Copenhagen)
Year2025
Volume12
Issue2
Pages1-23
Publication date2025-06-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedicine Anthropology Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2405-691X • E-ISSN: 2405-691X
PublisherUniversity of Edinburgh (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.17157/mat.12.2.9207
OpenAlexW4411378521
LanguageEN
References cited11

In this article we examine how patients of elective orthopaedic surgery might transform the understanding of their body's fixability over time. The article builds on an ethnographic fieldwork at an elective orthopaedic unit in Denmark and follow-up interviews with two patients eighteen months after their surgery. Through the affective theoretical framework of Lauren Berlant's Cruel Optimism, we discuss how the patients experience the part-loss of functionality. We trace the transformations in their expectations of their body through their use of metaphors. Drawing on Alan Bleakley's division of the metaphors of the body into 'body-as-machine' and 'body-as-ecology', we argue that patients end up describing their bodies through both these metaphors, and come to understand their bodies as not being fixable, but as being in ongoing process

Elective surgery · General surgery · Orthopedic surgery · Empathy and Medical Education · Medicine · Surgery

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Open DOIOpen Access