Towards a Micro-Cultural-Sociology of Categorical Revision: The Case of Chronically Ill People

• In Event: 228 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 06. Culture and Contemporary Theory

Abstract

Recent work in cognitive and cultural sociology has focused on the persistence, rather than change, in social categorization in late modernity. Categorical persistence is accounted for by a Bourdieu inspired “dual process” theory of cognition: social categorization works mainly at the “unconscious” level, and is thus not amenable to conscious reform. Despite the obvious empirical and heuristic strength of the standard representation of social categorization as unconscious, this representation nevertheless risks black boxing the micro foundation of macro-level revision of social categorization. In order to begin to bridge the gap between micro and macro, a micro-cultural-sociology of how individuals come to rework the content of, and relationship between, pre-existing categories in light of their biographical situations is called for. It should be noted that I do not presume to get at the “actual” process of categorical revision. Instead, I offer a narrative approach, examining the content and rhetorical function of retrospectively constructed personal accounts of experiences of categorical revision. Specifically, I look at how chronically ill narratively redraw the boundary between the categories of health and illness in order to make sense of their liminal situation of being in between said categories. Preliminary analysis suggests that three cultural repertoires of categorical revision available to chronically ill people. In using these repertoires to revise ordinary understandings of health and illness, chronically ill people engage in particular form of narrative identity reconstruction: from victim in a healthist society to a wise person who is accepting of her fate.

Author

• Hwa-Yen Huang, Rutgers University