TY - JOUR

T1 - Am I fine?

T2 - Exploring everyday life ambiguities and potentialities of embodied sensations in a Danish middle-class community

AU - Offersen, Sara Marie Hebsgaard

AU - Risør, Mette Bech

AU - Vedsted, Peter

AU - Andersen, Rikke Sand

PY - 2016/12/13

Y1 - 2016/12/13

N2 - Woven into the fabric of human existence is the possibility of death and suffering from disease. This essential vulnerability calls forth processes of meaning-making, of grappling with uncertainty and morality. In this article we explore the uncertainty and ambiguity that exists in the space between bodily sensations and symptoms of illness. Bodily sensations have the potential to become symptoms of disease or to be absorbed into ordinariness, prompting the question: how do we ascribe meaning to sensations? In the context of middle-class everyday life in Denmark, we show how different potentialities of ambiguous sensations are weighed against each other on a culturally and morally contingent continuum between normal and not normal, uncovering the complex interplay between the body, everyday life, and pervasive biomedical discourses focusing on health promotion, symptom awareness, and care-seeking.

AB - Woven into the fabric of human existence is the possibility of death and suffering from disease. This essential vulnerability calls forth processes of meaning-making, of grappling with uncertainty and morality. In this article we explore the uncertainty and ambiguity that exists in the space between bodily sensations and symptoms of illness. Bodily sensations have the potential to become symptoms of disease or to be absorbed into ordinariness, prompting the question: how do we ascribe meaning to sensations? In the context of middle-class everyday life in Denmark, we show how different potentialities of ambiguous sensations are weighed against each other on a culturally and morally contingent continuum between normal and not normal, uncovering the complex interplay between the body, everyday life, and pervasive biomedical discourses focusing on health promotion, symptom awareness, and care-seeking.

KW - potentiality

KW - sensations

KW - symptoms

KW - uncertainty

KW - Denmark

M3 - Journal article

VL - 3

SP - 23

EP - 45

JO - Medicine Anthropology Theory

JF - Medicine Anthropology Theory

SN - 2405-691X

IS - 3

ER -