TY - JOUR

T1 - 'The Good Citizen’

T2 - Balancing Moral Possibilities in Everyday Life between Sensation, Symptom and Healthcare Seeking

AU - Offersen, Sara Marie Hebsgaard

AU - Vedsted, Peter

AU - Andersen, Rikke Sand

PY - 2017/3/1

Y1 - 2017/3/1

N2 - This article explores how healthcare-seeking practices and the transformation of bodily sensations into symptoms are embedded in what we term a ‘moral sensescape’ of ev- eryday life. Based on fi eldwork in a suburban middle-class neighbourhood in Denmark, we discuss how a moral relation between the Danish welfare state and the middle-class popula- tion is embodied in a responsibility for individual health. Overall, we identify a striving to be a ‘good citizen’; this entails confl icting moral possibilities in relation to experiencing, interpreting and acting on bodily sensations. We examine how people meet the conflicting moral possibilities of complying with current public health rhetoric on proper healthcare seeking, including timely presentation of symptoms, and simultaneously try to avoid misusing the healthcare system and be characterised as overly worried or even as a hypochondriac; this challenge constitutes complex navigational routes through the moral sensescape of the Danish middle

AB - This article explores how healthcare-seeking practices and the transformation of bodily sensations into symptoms are embedded in what we term a ‘moral sensescape’ of ev- eryday life. Based on fi eldwork in a suburban middle-class neighbourhood in Denmark, we discuss how a moral relation between the Danish welfare state and the middle-class popula- tion is embodied in a responsibility for individual health. Overall, we identify a striving to be a ‘good citizen’; this entails confl icting moral possibilities in relation to experiencing, interpreting and acting on bodily sensations. We examine how people meet the conflicting moral possibilities of complying with current public health rhetoric on proper healthcare seeking, including timely presentation of symptoms, and simultaneously try to avoid misusing the healthcare system and be characterised as overly worried or even as a hypochondriac; this challenge constitutes complex navigational routes through the moral sensescape of the Danish middle

KW - Denmark, healthcare seeking, middle class, morality, sensations, sensescape, symptoms, welfare

U2 - 10.3167/aia.2017.240102

DO - 10.3167/aia.2017.240102

M3 - Journal article

VL - 24/1

SP - 6

EP - 12

JO - Anthropology in Action

JF - Anthropology in Action

SN - 0967-201X

ER -