Stories of Suffering: Subjective Tales and Research Narratives
- 1 May 1999
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Qualitative Health Research
- Vol. 9 (3) , 362-382
- https://doi.org/10.1177/104973239900900306
Abstract
The following analysis addresses relationships between suffering and the self. It emphasizes subjects’ stories of experiencing chronic illness and their relationship to the construction of self. A symbolic interactionist perspective informs the analysis. Topics include forms of suffering, the moral hierarchy of suffering, relationships between gender and moral status in suffering, and meanings of subjects’ stories. The major argument is that suffering is a profoundly moral status. Placement in the moral hierarchy of suffering affects whether and how an ill person’s stories will be heard.Keywords
This publication has 24 references indexed in Scilit:
- Contemporary Hospice Care: the Sequestration of the Unbounded Body and ‘Dirty Dying’Sociology of Health & Illness, 1998
- Ethnographic Research in Medical SociologySociological Methods & Research, 1997
- TELLING TALES, WRITING STORIESJournal of Contemporary Ethnography, 1996
- The Body, Identity, and Self: Adapting To ImpairmentThe Sociological Quarterly, 1995
- Pathogenesis, Immunity, and the Quality of Public HealthQualitative Health Research, 1995
- The Rhetoric of Self-Change: Illness Experience as NarrativeThe Sociological Quarterly, 1993
- Narrative's Moment and Sociology's Phenomena: Toward a Narrative SociologyThe Sociological Quarterly, 1993
- CONFRONTING DEADLY DISEASEJournal of Contemporary Ethnography, 1990
- The genesis of chronic illness: narrative re‐constructionSociology of Health & Illness, 1984
- Loss of self: a fundamental form of suffering in the chronically illSociology of Health & Illness, 1983