Pity, modernity and the spectacle of suffering

Journal of Palliative Care

Volumn 20, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 179-184

  Radley, Alan ^a  

^a LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CONFERENCE PAPER; HEALTH CARE; HUMAN; ILLNESS BEHAVIOR; MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY; PATIENT ATTITUDE; PROGNOSIS; SOCIAL ASPECT; SOCIAL INTERACTION;

EID: 4644328042     PISSN: 08258597     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/082585970402000310     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (15)

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3. Berger PL, Berger B, Kellner H. The homeless mind. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974; pp. 83-84.
4. However, honour is not an outmoded concept in the modern world when applied to people in their institutional role. The soldiers portrayed in media photographs showing indignities heaped upon their Iraqi prisoners are guilty of dishonourable conduct. It is not shame (following the loss of dignity) that attaches to them and their regiment, but disgrace consequent upon a loss of honour.
5. Bogdan R, Taylor SJ. Relationships with severely disabled people: the social construction of humanness. Soc Probl 1989; 36(2): 135-148.
6. Charmaz K. Loss of self: a fundamental form of suffering in the chronically ill. Sociol Health Illn 1983; 5: 168-195.
7. Herzlich C. Modern medicine and the quest for meaning: illness as a social signifier. In: Auge M, Herzlich C (eds). The Meaning of Illness: anthropology, history and sociology. London: Harwood, 1995; pp. 151-173.
8. Arendt H. On Revolution. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.
9. Frank AW. At the Will of the Body: reflections on illness. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
10. Rose G. Love's Work. London: Chatto and Windus, 1995.
11. Radley A. The aesthetics of illness: narrative, horror and the sublime. Sociol Health Illn 1999; 21: 778-796.
12. Frank AW. The Wounded Storyteller: body, illness and ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995; p. 39.
13. Spence J. Putting Myself in the Picture: a political, personal and photographic autobiography. Seattle: Real Comet Press, 1988.
14. Jones A. Body Art/Performing the Subject. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998.
15. Yet the display of these particular photographs, as with all images relating to illness, is context sensitive and continues, with each revelation, to risk the dignity of the women pictured. To sustain that dignity requires the observer to look with a caring eye, to complete the arc of understanding that Spence's and Wilke's pictures invite but cannot demand. This underlines the fact that the appearance of dignity is relational, contested, and multifaceted. Spence and Wilke do not just ask that we be indignant or that we care, but that we assume a "prototypical responsibility." See: Radley A. Portrayals of suffering: on looking away, looking at, and the comprehension of illness experience. Body & Society 2002; 8: 1-23.