IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socres/v5y2000i2p11-22.html

Writing about Health and Sickness: An Analysis of Contemporary Autobiographical Writing from the British Mass-Observation Archive

Author

Listed:
  • Helen Busby

Abstract

In this paper, I explore some of the writing about health and sickness undertaken by volunteers writing for a British social history archive. The Mass-Observation Archive's commissioning of diaries and other forms of self- reportage has made it a prominent part of the landscape of sociology in Britain (Calder, 1985). Initiated during the 1930s, the Mass-Observation Archive's early work included the well-known worktown project. The early project was wound up in 1950, but interest in the archives eventually prompted a new project, initiated in 1981. The ‘new project’ is essentially a collection of writing on a range of issues by a panel of volunteers recruited through the media and other informal means. This paper represents a cycling through of ideas about the relationships between health, sickness, and work, via my reading of some of the writing held at the Archive. The writings with which this paper is centrally concerned are the responses to an invitation issued in the autumn of 1998 for writing about ‘Staying well and everyday life’. In addition, writings on ‘The pace of life’ and on working life were consulted. Unlike much of the data about sickness in relation to work - which relies on documentation of sickness absence- these accounts show actions which are not taken. Some of them point to a phenomenon which I have termed ‘shadow sickness, that is illness which exists without there being a mechanism to translate that experience into recognised sickness. Overall though it is the moral context of illness and of ideas about staying well which are prominent in many of these accounts and which are discussed in this paper.

Suggested Citation

  • Helen Busby, 2000. "Writing about Health and Sickness: An Analysis of Contemporary Autobiographical Writing from the British Mass-Observation Archive," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 5(2), pages 11-22, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:5:y:2000:i:2:p:11-22
    DOI: 10.5153/sro.480
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.480
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5153/sro.480?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ferrie, Jane E. & Shipley, Martin J. & Marmot, Michael G. & Stansfeld, Stephen & Smith, George Davey, 1998. "The health effects of major organisational change and job insecurity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 243-254, January.
    2. H. Elliott, 1997. "The Use of Diaries in Sociological Research on Health Experience," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 2(2), pages 38-48, June.
    3. Robinson, Ian, 1990. "Personal narratives, social careers and medical courses: Analysing life trajectories in autobiographies of people with multiple sclerosis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 30(11), pages 1173-1186, January.
    4. Berney, L. R. & Blane, D. B., 1997. "Collecting retrospective data: Accuracy of recall after 50 years judged against historical records," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1519-1525, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Simmons, Rebecca K. & Singh, Gita & Maconochie, Noreen & Doyle, Pat & Green, Judith, 2006. "Experience of miscarriage in the UK: Qualitative findings from the National Women's Health Study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(7), pages 1934-1946, October.
    2. Anne-Marie Kramer, 2014. "The Observers and the Observed: The ‘dual Vision’ of the Mass Observation Project," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 19(3), pages 226-236, September.
    3. Sarah Nettleton & Emma Uprichard, 2011. "‘A Slice of Life’: Food Narratives and Menus from Mass-Observers in 1982 and 1945," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 16(2), pages 99-107, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Crooks, Valorie A., 2007. "Exploring the altered daily geographies and lifeworlds of women living with fibromyalgia syndrome: A mixed-method approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 577-588, February.
    2. Brown, Christopher J. & Markusson, Nils, 2019. "The responses of older adults to smart energy monitors," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 218-226.
    3. Concetta Russo & Marco Terraneo, 2020. "Mental Well-being Among Workers: A Cross-national Analysis of Job Insecurity Impact on the Workforce," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 152(2), pages 421-442, November.
    4. Jenny Hislop & Sara Arber & Rob Meadows & Sue Venn, 2005. "Narratives of the Night: The Use of Audio Diaries in Researching Sleep," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 10(4), pages 13-25, December.
    5. Shubin, Sergei & Rapport, Frances & Seagrove, Anne, 2015. "Complex and dynamic times of being chronically ill: Beyond disease trajectories of patients with ulcerative colitis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 105-112.
    6. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13646 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Stockl, Andrea, 2007. "Complex syndromes, ambivalent diagnosis, and existential uncertainty: The case of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(7), pages 1549-1559, October.
    8. Bardasi, Elena & Francesconi, Marco, 2004. "The impact of atypical employment on individual wellbeing: evidence from a panel of British workers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(9), pages 1671-1688, May.
    9. Yan-Hua Diao & Chun-Shuo Chen, 2020. "Research on the Relationship Between Job Competence and Job Well-Being in Service Industry—Based on the Mediating Effect of Job Insecurity," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, January.
    10. Italo A. Gutierrez & Pierre-Carl Michaud, 2017. "Whistle While You Work: Job Insecurity and Older Workers’ Mental Health in the United States," CIRANO Working Papers 2017s-21, CIRANO.
    11. Setti Rais Ali & Paul Dourgnon & Lise Rochaix, 2018. "Social Capital or Education: What Matters Most to Cut Time to Diagnosis?," Working Papers halshs-01703170, HAL.
    12. Giuseppe Calignano & Rune Dahl Fitjar, 2017. "Strengthening relationships in clusters: How effective is an indirect policy measure carried out in a peripheral technology district?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 59(1), pages 139-169, July.
    13. Bratberg, Espen & Monstad, Karin, 2015. "Worried sick? Worker responses to a financial shock," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 111-120.
    14. Till Stowasser & Florian Heiss & Daniel McFadden & Joachim Winter, 2014. "Understanding the SES Gradient in Health Among the Elderly: The Role of Childhood Circumstances," NBER Chapters, in: Discoveries in the Economics of Aging, pages 187-219, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Danzer, Alexander M. & Dietz, Barbara & Gatskova, Ksenia & Schmillen, Achim, 2014. "Showing off to the new neighbors? Income, socioeconomic status and consumption patterns of internal migrants," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 230-245.
    16. Li, Yaxi & Xue, Qian-Li & Odden, Michelle C. & Chen, Xi & Wu, Chenkai, 2019. "Early Life Environments and Frailty in Old Age among Chinese Older Adults," IZA Discussion Papers 12764, IZA Network @ LISER.
    17. Thierry Debrand & Pascale Lengagne, 2007. "Organisation du travail et sante des seniors en Europe," Working Papers DT3, IRDES institut for research and information in health economics, revised Feb 2007.
    18. Pierre-Carl Michaud & Italo A. Gutierrez, 2015. "Employer downsizing and older workers’ health," CIRANO Working Papers 2015s-34, CIRANO.
    19. Vera Amicarelli & Christian Bux, 2021. "Food waste in Italian households during the Covid-19 pandemic: a self-reporting approach," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 13(1), pages 25-37, February.
    20. Chadi, Cornelia, 2023. "Too stressed to sleep? Downsizing, job insecurity and sleep behavior," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    21. Menéndez, María & Benach, Joan & Muntaner, Carles & Amable, Marcelo & O'Campo, Patricia, 2007. "Is precarious employment more damaging to women's health than men's?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(4), pages 776-781, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:5:y:2000:i:2:p:11-22. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.