Like clockwork? (Re)imagining rhythms and routines when living with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)

Abstract

Temporal trajectories of health, illness and disabilityfrom biographical change to micro-embodied practices within social time-are important strands within medical sociology and disability studies. Drawing upon a UK-based qualitative study using diaries and follow-up interviews to explore everyday life with irritable bowel syndrome ( IBS ), this article explores routines when living with the condition. It focuses specifically on accounts of routines being anticipated, slowed down and stretched out to accommodate and/or care for bodies, with personal and social rhythms weaved in, out and with each other. Such reflections are told through participants' accounts of knowing routines and rhythms, stretching out and pacing morning routines to care for the body and how everyday practices are reimagined as the body and the social meet. Drawing upon the concept of 'Crip Time' where the social bends to meet with the body, this article seeks to illuminate important intersections between medical sociology and disability studies through accounts of living with IBS. This article demonstrates the entanglement of structural, disabling temporal rhythms and embodied temporalities, through an acknowledgement of routines reimagined. It offers

Introduction to special issue: New dialogues between medical sociology and disability studies

“…In so doing, White—whose article was awarded the Mildred Blaxter New Writer’s Prize 2022—shifts the focus away from medical diagnosis and treatment (as the wheelhouse of medical sociologists) and towards the lived realities of having IBS. Her analysis is guided by the concept of ‘crip time’, a staple of disability studies rarely utilised in medical sociology, to ‘acknowledge the ways in which social clocks bend to meet bodies and minds’ (2023, p. 1260). Asking how we might recognise change within the body along with an attentiveness to its embeddedness within social structures and time, White explores her participants’ everyday management strategies to work around the problems created by unresponsive public places, including workplaces.…”

“…Asking how we might recognise change within the body along with an attentiveness to its embeddedness within social structures and time, White explores her participants’ everyday management strategies to work around the problems created by unresponsive public places, including workplaces. Here, bodies are ‘bounded’ (2023, p. 1267); mundane everyday tasks, such as waking up and walking a dog, are ‘anticipated, (re)structured, and (re)imagined in line with inaccessible public landscapes and (un)predictable bowels’ (2023, p. 1272). White argues that bringing crip time to the table, where the body and the socia l are forced into direct entanglement (and in ways that can be challenging to a person), means dialogues between medical sociology and disability can illuminate temporality.…”

“…The contribution of Kolářová et al further recognises how illnesses, such as IBD, set embodiment and metabolism in complex relation to time-as something uncertain, fluctuating and ongoing. In a separate contribution which complements this article, White (2023) reports upon her qualitative study with people living with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). In so doing, Whitewhose article was awarded the Mildred Blaxter New Writer's Prize 2022-shifts the focus away from medical diagnosis and treatment (as the wheelhouse of medical sociologists) and towards the lived realities of having IBS.…”

The use of diaries for understanding the experience of health and illness

“…Indeed, through diaries it is possible to capture the invisible dimensions of day‐to‐day life that otherwise would remain invisible (Bates, 2013). For instance, White (2022) made use of diaries to catch the everyday nature of irritable bowel syndrome, namely the day‐to‐day routines of sufferers, their everyday negotiations, the places they used to go, the people and things that matter to them. Following this train of thought, the insights that diaries offer about the everyday life of participants has been compared to the immersion that participant observation enables (Bijoux & Myers, 2006).…”

From the Home to the (Hand)bag: Negotiating Privacy in Personal Life when Living with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

“…Molly presents the intimacies of everyday life – the close associations, privileged knowledges and trust of our bodies with intimate others (Jamieson, 1998). Molly’s account is an example of familial shared domestic life, morning routines (Gabb, 2008: 155) and temporal interdependencies when living with IBS (White, 2022). Her account demonstrates the divisions and negotiations of privacy when it comes to one of the most private rooms of the house – the bathroom.…”