Can we Research Suffering?
Top Cited Papers
- 1 May 2001
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Qualitative Health Research
- Vol. 11 (3) , 353-362
- https://doi.org/10.1177/104973201129119154
Abstract
Illness troubles us because it is an occasion of suffering, but research on illness has difficulty conceptualizing suffering—and naturally so because suffering is not a concept but a lived reality that resists articulation. Based on the work of Dorothy Smith, the author argues that the rhetoric of social science inadvertently increases suffering because it attempts to organize local experience within extralocal categories. He concludes with suggestions for changing research practices.Keywords
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