Negotiating acquired spinal conditions: Recovery with/in bodily materiality and fluids

Abstract

The paper explores the concept of recovery; the unexpected material changes that occur to, and within bodies following acquired spinal conditions. The phrase 'acquired spinal conditions' is used as a collective name for the four accounts of recovery that emerged using Participatory Action Research in the north east of England (2010-11). Using two qualitative methods, Photovoice and participatory diagramming, the empirical material examines the role of physiological changes as a way to enrich understandings of disability and the bodily experience of impairment. Three themes, bodily materiality, material objects and fluids became significant during one-to-one and small group interactions with participants. The paper is situated in wider debates in geographies of disability and impairment, focusing on the interplay between different physiological states of being and the bodily changes experienced through recovery. It argues that recovery is the process of negotiating, adapting and adjusting to changes, from the way bodily materiality shifts and fluctuates following accidents and medical interventions, settling over time as participants become aware of bodily changes, to the role of material objects and the fluids that pass back and forth changing bodily interiors. The paper closes with a call for geographies of affect to explore the individual and collective feelings associated with fluids, and the human-animal relations affecting recovery and bodily interiors.

Cognition and Interaction: From the Perspective of Daily Therapeutic Landscape of the Coastal Zone

“…It involves comprehending how we actively create and transform the world through skillful sensory activities [11]. On the other hand, an alternative perspective suggests that external bodily injuries can stabilize when participants become aware of bodily changes, recognize the impact of external materials, and engage in reciprocal changes within the body [12]. Therefore, bodily health should not be seen merely as an individual quality but rather as emerging from attunements and resonances between bodies and materials [13].…”

Cognition and Interaction: From the Perspective of Daily Therapeutic Landscape of the Coastal Zone

“…It involves comprehending how we actively create and transform the world through skillful sensory activities [11]. On the other hand, an alternative perspective suggests that external bodily injuries can stabilize when participants become aware of bodily changes, recognize the impact of external materials, and engage in reciprocal changes within the body [12]. Therefore, bodily health should not be seen merely as an individual quality but rather emerges from attunements and resonances between bodies and materials [13].…”