Virtual Special Issue

Virtual special issue on ‘Illness, biography and narrative’
Editorial by Julia Lawton

Introduction

Since Parsons first coined the concept of the ‘sick role’ in the early 1950s, medical sociology has undergone a major conceptual shift. In this, the discipline’s early emphasis upon, and interest in, the biomedical perspective has been superseded by ‘a fully-fledged “sociology of health and illness” in which the lay voice is accorded equal legitimacy both inside and outside the medical citadel’ (Williams 2000: 41). Two strands of work have appeared in Sociology of Health and Illness which have formed a significant part of this shift. One of these has been concerned with the impact of illness on patients’ biographies and identities, the other with how people use narratives to give meaning and voice to their suffering over time. This virtual special issue showcases what are now considered to be classic examples of this work, and looks at how some of the key concepts and ideas arising from them have been critiqued, revised and developed in subsequent contributions to the journal.

Read the full editorial

List of articles appearing in the Virtual Special Issue

Bury, M. (1982) Chronic illness as biographical disruption, Sociology of Health & Illness, 4, 2, 167-182.

Bury, M. (2001) Illness narratives: fact or fiction? Sociology of Health & Illness, 23, 3, 263-285.

Carricaburu, D. and Pierret, J. (1995) From biographical disruption to biographical reinforcement: the case of HIV positive men, Sociology of Health & Illness, 17, 1, 65-88.

Clark, J.A. and Mishler E.G. (1992) Attending to patients’ stories: reframing the clinical task, Sociology of Health & Illness, 14, 3, 344-372.

Faircloth, C.A., Boylstein, C., Rittman, M., Young, M.E and Gubrium, J. (2004) Sudden illness and biographical flow in narratives of stroke recovery, Sociology of Health & Illness, 26, 2, 242-261.

Hydén, L.C. (1997) Illness and narrative, Sociology of Health & Illness, 19, 1, 48-69.

Lawton, J., Ahmad, N., Peel, E., and Hallowell, N. (2007) Contextualising accounts of illness: notions of responsibility and blame in white and South Asian respondents’ accounts of diabetes causation. Sociology of Health & Illness, 26, 6, 891-906.

Lawton J. (2003) Lay experiences of health and illness: past research and future agendas, Sociology of Health & Illness, 25, 3, 23-40 (special issue)

Pound, P., Gompertz, P. and Ebrahim, S. (1998) Illness in the context of older age: the case of stroke, Sociology of Health & Illness, 20, 4, 489-506.

Radley, A. and Billig, M. (1996) 'Accounts of Health and Illness: Dilemmas and Representations', Sociology of Health and Illness, 18, 2, 220 - 240.

Sanders, C., Donovan, J. and Dieppe, P. (2002) The significance and consequences of having painful and disabled joints in older age: co-existing accounts of normal and disrupted biographies, Sociology of Health & Illness, 24, 2, 227-253.

Williams, G. (1984) The genesis of chronic illness: narrative reconstruction, Sociology of Health & Illness, 6, 2, 175-200.

Williams, S. J. (2000) Chronic illness as biographical disruption or biographical disruption as chronic illness? Reflections on a core concept, Sociology of Health & Illness, 22, 1, 40-67.

Other references
Bury, M. (1988) Meanings at risk: the experience of arthritis. In Anderson, R. and Bury, M. (eds) Living the Chronic Illness: The Experiences of Patients and Their Families. London: Unwin Hyman.

Dumont, L. (1970) Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and its Implications. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.