The Society for Psychological Anthropology (SPA) will hold its biennial meeting April 4-7, 2013, in San Diego, California. Charlotte van den Hout (UC San Diego) is inviting papers for the panel “Narratives of Recovery: Exploring Illness as a Means for Becoming.” She writes:
This panel ethnographically explores subjective accounts of recovery from serious illness, highlighting narrative themes of transformation, reconstruction, and new beginnings. Seeking to go beyond an understanding of illness as a “disruption” (Becker 1997), or as an obstacle to the maintenance of meaningful selfhood and interpersonal relationships, this panel explores ways in which illness and symptoms can also be a “potentiality for becoming” (Biehl & Locke 2010). Drawing on in-depth analyses of individual recovery narratives taken from a variety of cultural and medical contexts, papers will explore the role that illness can play in projects of “work of the self” (Parish 2008): in subjective and intersubjective processes of (re)constructing meaningful selfhood, social relationships, and notions of morality and authenticity.
If you are interested in participating in this panel, please send an abstract of up to 250 words to cvandenh@ucsd.edu by November 21, 2012.