Mediated self-care and the question of agency
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.32243Keywords:
agency, mediated discourse analysis, narrative, Quantified Self, self-care, technologiesAbstract
This article analyses the discursive construction of agency in narratives of 'mediated self-care', stories of disease management and/or recovery in which particular material or discursive technologies play a central part. Specifically, it analyses two stories of self-care, one told in the context of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and the other told in the context of a Quantified Self 'meetup'. The analytical apparatus I will bring to bear on these data is mediated discourse analysis, an approach to discourse whose primary focus is on the actions and identities made possible when people appropriate 'technologies' into particular situations (or 'sites of engagement'). The analysis focuses on how narrators construct their relationship with the technologies they use, how they describe the process of mastering these technologies and how these technologies are represented as emblems of group membership. The analysis reveals how different kinds of technologies of self-care are associated with different constructions of the self and individual agency and different constructions of 'wellness'.
References
Archer, M. S. (2007) Making Our Way through the World: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511618932
Alcoholics Anonymous (1939) Big Book. New York: Works Publishing Company.
Arduser, L. (2014) Agency in illness narratives: A pluralistic analysis. Narrative Inquiry 24 (1): 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.24.1.01ard
Bateson, G. (1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bode, M. and Kristensen, D. B. (2015) The digital doppelgänger within: A study on self-tracking and the quantified self movement. In R. Canniford (ed.) Assembling Consumption: Researching Actors, Networks and Markets, 119–134. London: Routledge.
Boesel, W. (2013) What is the quantified self now? Cyborgology, 22 May. Available online: http:// thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/05/22/what-is-the-quantified-self-now/
Burke, K. (1969) A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bury, M. (1982) Chronic illness as biographical disruption. Sociology of Health and Illness 4 (2): 167–182. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.ep11339939
Bury, M. (2001) Illness narratives: Fact or fiction? Sociology of Health and Illness 23 (3): 263–285. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.00252
Cain, C. (1991) Personal stories: Identity acquisition and self-understanding in Alcoholics Anonymous. Ethos 19 (2): 210–253. https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1991.19.2.02a00040
Foucault, M. (1988) Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Ed. L. H. Martin, H. Gutman and P. H. Hutton. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Foucault, M. (2003 [1982]) Technologies of the self. In M. Foucault (ed. P. Rabinow), Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth: Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, Volume 1, 223–251. New York: The New Press.
Frank, A. (1995) The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226260037.001.0001
Goetz, T. (2011) Harnessing the power of feedback loops. Wired, 19 June. Available online: www .wired.com/magazine/2011/06/ff_feedbackloop/al 1/1
Hawkes, T. (1977) Structuralism and Semiotics. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203443934
Humphreys, K. (2000) Community narratives and personal stories in Alcoholics Anonymous. Journal of Community Psychology 28 (5): 495–506. https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6629(200009)28:5<495::AID-JCOP3>3.0.CO;2-W
Jones, R. H. (2009) Dancing, skating and sex: Action and text in the digital age. Journal of Applied Linguistics 6 (3): 283–302.
Jones, R. H. (2013) Health and Risk Communication: An Applied Linguistic Perspective. London: Routledge.
Jones, R. H. (2015) Discourse, cybernetics and the entextualization of the self. In R. H. Jones, A. Chik and C. A. Haf Badner (eds) Discourse and Digital Practices: Doing Discourse Analysis in the Digital Age, 28-47. London: Routledge.
Jones, R. H. (2016a) Spoken Discourse. London: Bloomsbury.
Jones, R. H. (2016b) The discursive construction of knowledge about genetics on YouTube. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL), Cambridge, 1–3 September.
Kleinman, A. (1988) The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing and the Human Condition. New York: Basic Books.
Labov, W. and Waletzky, J. (1966) Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. In I. Helm (ed.) Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts: Proceedings of the 1966 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society, 12–44. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Lapum, J., Angus, J. E., Peter, E. and Watt-Watson, J. (2010) Patients’ narrative accounts of open-heart surgery and recovery: Authorial voice of technology. Social Science & Medicine 70 (5): 754–762. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.11.021
Latour B. (1991) Society is technology made durable. In J. Law (ed.) A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and Domination, 103–131. London: Routledge.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815355
Lupton, D. (2014) Digital Sociology. London: Routledge.
Norris, S. and Jones, R. H. (2005) Discourse in Action: Introducing Mediated Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge.
Pennebaker J. W. and Seagal, J. D. (1999) Forming a story: The health benefits of narrative. Journal of Clinical Psychology 55 (10): 1243–1254. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4679(199910)55:10<1243::AID-JCLP6>3.0.CO;2-N
Riessman, C. K. (1990) Strategic uses of narrative in the presentation of self and illness: A research note. Social Science and Medicine 30 (11): 1195–1200. https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(90)90259-U
Riessman, C. K. (1993) Narrative Analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Ruckenstein, M. and Pantzar, M. (2015) Beyond the Quantified Self: Thematic exploration of a dataistic paradigm. New Media & Society 19 (3): 401–418. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815609081
Scollon, R. (2001) Mediated Discourse: The Nexus of Practice. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203420065
Scollon, R. and Scollon, S. W. (2004) Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet. London: Routledge.
Topol, E. (2012) The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care. New York: Basic Books.
Verbeek, P.-P. (2011) Moralizing Technology: Understanding and Designing the Morality of Things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226852904.001.0001
Vygotsky, L. S. (1962) Thought and Language. Trans. E. Hanfmann and G. Vakar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.1037/11193-000
Wertsch, J. V. (1993) Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wertsch, J. V. (1994) The primacy of mediated action in sociocultural studies. Mind, Culture, and Activity 1 (4): 202–208.
Wiener, N. (1948) Cybernetics: Or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. New York: John Wiley & Sons / Paris: Hermann et CIE.
Wolf, G. (2010) The data driven life. New York Times Magazine, 28 April. Available online: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/magazine/02self-measurement-t.html
World Health Organization (1984) Health education in self-care: Possibilities and limitations. Geneva: World Health Organization. Available online: http://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/70092
Ziguras, C. (2013) Self-Care. London: Routledge.
Alcoholics Anonymous (1939) Big Book. New York: Works Publishing Company.
Arduser, L. (2014) Agency in illness narratives: A pluralistic analysis. Narrative Inquiry 24 (1): 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.24.1.01ard
Bateson, G. (1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bode, M. and Kristensen, D. B. (2015) The digital doppelgänger within: A study on self-tracking and the quantified self movement. In R. Canniford (ed.) Assembling Consumption: Researching Actors, Networks and Markets, 119–134. London: Routledge.
Boesel, W. (2013) What is the quantified self now? Cyborgology, 22 May. Available online: http:// thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/05/22/what-is-the-quantified-self-now/
Burke, K. (1969) A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bury, M. (1982) Chronic illness as biographical disruption. Sociology of Health and Illness 4 (2): 167–182. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.ep11339939
Bury, M. (2001) Illness narratives: Fact or fiction? Sociology of Health and Illness 23 (3): 263–285. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.00252
Cain, C. (1991) Personal stories: Identity acquisition and self-understanding in Alcoholics Anonymous. Ethos 19 (2): 210–253. https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1991.19.2.02a00040
Foucault, M. (1988) Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Ed. L. H. Martin, H. Gutman and P. H. Hutton. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Foucault, M. (2003 [1982]) Technologies of the self. In M. Foucault (ed. P. Rabinow), Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth: Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, Volume 1, 223–251. New York: The New Press.
Frank, A. (1995) The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226260037.001.0001
Goetz, T. (2011) Harnessing the power of feedback loops. Wired, 19 June. Available online: www .wired.com/magazine/2011/06/ff_feedbackloop/al 1/1
Hawkes, T. (1977) Structuralism and Semiotics. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203443934
Humphreys, K. (2000) Community narratives and personal stories in Alcoholics Anonymous. Journal of Community Psychology 28 (5): 495–506. https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6629(200009)28:5<495::AID-JCOP3>3.0.CO;2-W
Jones, R. H. (2009) Dancing, skating and sex: Action and text in the digital age. Journal of Applied Linguistics 6 (3): 283–302.
Jones, R. H. (2013) Health and Risk Communication: An Applied Linguistic Perspective. London: Routledge.
Jones, R. H. (2015) Discourse, cybernetics and the entextualization of the self. In R. H. Jones, A. Chik and C. A. Haf Badner (eds) Discourse and Digital Practices: Doing Discourse Analysis in the Digital Age, 28-47. London: Routledge.
Jones, R. H. (2016a) Spoken Discourse. London: Bloomsbury.
Jones, R. H. (2016b) The discursive construction of knowledge about genetics on YouTube. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL), Cambridge, 1–3 September.
Kleinman, A. (1988) The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing and the Human Condition. New York: Basic Books.
Labov, W. and Waletzky, J. (1966) Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. In I. Helm (ed.) Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts: Proceedings of the 1966 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society, 12–44. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Lapum, J., Angus, J. E., Peter, E. and Watt-Watson, J. (2010) Patients’ narrative accounts of open-heart surgery and recovery: Authorial voice of technology. Social Science & Medicine 70 (5): 754–762. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.11.021
Latour B. (1991) Society is technology made durable. In J. Law (ed.) A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and Domination, 103–131. London: Routledge.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815355
Lupton, D. (2014) Digital Sociology. London: Routledge.
Norris, S. and Jones, R. H. (2005) Discourse in Action: Introducing Mediated Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge.
Pennebaker J. W. and Seagal, J. D. (1999) Forming a story: The health benefits of narrative. Journal of Clinical Psychology 55 (10): 1243–1254. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4679(199910)55:10<1243::AID-JCLP6>3.0.CO;2-N
Riessman, C. K. (1990) Strategic uses of narrative in the presentation of self and illness: A research note. Social Science and Medicine 30 (11): 1195–1200. https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(90)90259-U
Riessman, C. K. (1993) Narrative Analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Ruckenstein, M. and Pantzar, M. (2015) Beyond the Quantified Self: Thematic exploration of a dataistic paradigm. New Media & Society 19 (3): 401–418. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815609081
Scollon, R. (2001) Mediated Discourse: The Nexus of Practice. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203420065
Scollon, R. and Scollon, S. W. (2004) Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet. London: Routledge.
Topol, E. (2012) The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care. New York: Basic Books.
Verbeek, P.-P. (2011) Moralizing Technology: Understanding and Designing the Morality of Things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226852904.001.0001
Vygotsky, L. S. (1962) Thought and Language. Trans. E. Hanfmann and G. Vakar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.1037/11193-000
Wertsch, J. V. (1993) Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wertsch, J. V. (1994) The primacy of mediated action in sociocultural studies. Mind, Culture, and Activity 1 (4): 202–208.
Wiener, N. (1948) Cybernetics: Or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. New York: John Wiley & Sons / Paris: Hermann et CIE.
Wolf, G. (2010) The data driven life. New York Times Magazine, 28 April. Available online: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/magazine/02self-measurement-t.html
World Health Organization (1984) Health education in self-care: Possibilities and limitations. Geneva: World Health Organization. Available online: http://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/70092
Ziguras, C. (2013) Self-Care. London: Routledge.
Published
2019-10-24
Issue
Section
Articles
License
Equinox Publishing Ltd.
How to Cite
Jones, R. H. (2019). Mediated self-care and the question of agency. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, 13(1-3), 167-188. https://doi.org/10.1558/japl.32243
