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Health:, Vol. 10, No. 4,
421-440 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1363459306067312
Health stories as connectors and subjectifiers
Arthur W. Frank
University of Calgary, Canada, frank{at}ucalgary.ca
Health circulates inside bodies, as a condition of cells, tissues and organs, and outside bodies as signs. Health stories offer people bits of a subjectivity of health: an awareness of what is interior, expressed in signs that are exterior. Three genres of health stories are described: technoluxe stories, unbearable health stories and strategic health stories. These stories call out to people, bidding to be subjectifiers of health. Stories connect people who may become patients, providers of health services, health products, images, fears and desires. Following Latour, health stories are understood as a form of plug-in: resources that provide people with an ability to recognize and connect what was disparate.
Key Words: health • medical consumerism • narrative analysis • plug-in • subjectification
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Qualitative Social Work,
December 1, 2007;
6(4):
447 - 464.
[Abstract]
[PDF]
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