In dialogue with time

Identity and illness in narratives about chronic fatigue

Bibliographic Data

ID8070136
AuthorsPia H Bülow (0000-0001-7341-945X, Linköping University, corresponding author), Lars-Christer Hydén (0000-0002-3033-9879, Linköping University)
Year2003
Volume13
Issue1
Pages71-97
Publication date2003-08-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNarrative Inquiry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1387-6740 • E-ISSN: 1569-9935
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1075/ni.13.1.03bul
OpenAlexW1984891626
LanguageEN
Citations received17
References cited34

When we are stricken with an illness or some other affliction, the temporal frameworks that we take for granted in our everyday lives are overturned. Thus suffering and illnesses raise questions associated with temporality: were the past events necessary and unavoidable, could anything else have happened, and what will happen next? In this article we will discuss two intertwined problems that have to do with the organization of time in narratives about illness: the interviewee’s attempt to create an interview narrative and the researcher’s need to create a temporal order and coherence in the interview material properly founded in research. With a foothold in the literary scholars Morson’s and Bernstein’s theories about shadows of time we base our argument on an analysis of narratives given in interviews by people affected by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). The analysis shows various ways time can be used as a discursive tool to temporalize illness and suffering including temporalities that frequently go outside linear time perceptions by the use of “sideshadowings”. These various ways of temporalizing illness influence, for instance, factors like issues of responsibility and freedom of action. Findings like these indicate the importance of including the interviewees’ own temporalizations in the analysis of illness narratives in social science

Aesthetics · Art · Identity (music · Literature · Narrative · Critical Realism in Sociology · History · Management and Organizational Studies · Psychology · Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments

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