Who speaks for whom? Health humanities and the ethics of representation

Medical Humanities
Rebecca Garden

Abstract

The medical or health humanities are in essence a form of advocacy, a means of addressing a problem of underrepresentation. They focus on suffering, rather than pathology, and on sociocultural understandings of illness and disability, rather than a narrow biomedical perspective. The health humanities thus analyse and attempt to recalibrate the power imbalance in healthcare. This article reviews health humanities scholarship that addresses underrepresentation through the analysis of illness and disability narratives. It examines the ethics of representation by exploring how literary representation functions, its aesthetic as well as political dimensions, and how it operates as a relay mechanism for power. The mechanism of representation is further explored through a reading of Eli Clare's narrative Exile and Pride. Donna Haraway's notion of articulations is proposed as a tool for a more ethical approach to representation. The article suggests that transparency about the power health humanities scholars stand to gain through representation may contribute to a more ethical health humanities practice.

References

Jan 1, 1994·Literature and Medicine·A W Frank
Apr 26, 1997·Lancet·A H Jones
Apr 29, 1998·The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine : Research on Paradigm, Practice, and Policy·A Powell
Jan 5, 1999·BMJ : British Medical Journal·T Greenhalgh, B Hurwitz
Jun 10, 2000·Journal of Advanced Nursing·J A Sakalys
Jul 31, 2007·Perspectives in Biology and Medicine·Susan Merrill Squier
Jun 27, 2008·Academic Medicine : Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges·Arno K Kumagai
Jun 11, 2009·Lancet·Jane Macnaughton
Sep 19, 2009·The Journal of Medical Humanities·Delese Wear
Feb 23, 2010·Perspectives in Biology and Medicine·Rebecca Garden

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Citations

May 26, 2016·Medical Humanities·Martin Savransky, Marsha Rosengarten
Jul 13, 2020·The Journal of Medical Humanities·Sandy SufianRebecca Garden

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