Woven into the fabric of human existence is the possibility of death and suffering from disease. This essential vulnerability calls forth processes of meaning making, of grappling with uncertainty and morality. In this article we explore the uncertainty and ambiguity that exists in the space between bodily sensations and symptoms of illness. Bodily sensations have the potential to become symptoms ...

Approaching the presence of cancer in everyday life in terms of mythologies, the article examines what cancer is and how cancer-related potentialities are enacted and embodied in the context of contemporary regimes of anticipation. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a suburban Danish middle-class community among people who were not immediately afflicted by cancer, we describe different and ...

This paper regards a concern for the quality of analyses made on the basis of qualitative interviews in some parts of qualitative health research. Departing in discussions on studies exploring ‘patient delay’ in healthcare seeking, it is argued that an implicit and simplified notion of causality impedes reflexivity on social context, on the nature of verbal statements and on the situatedness of the ...

In this article we explore the uncertainties of living in the aftermath of cancer treatment within the context of the Norwegian welfare state. Serious illnesses confront people with the uncertainty of life itself. We suggest that managing this form of existential uncertainty is inherently a social process and their considerations of whether or not to share worries are part of the everyday management ...