Virtually biosocial: IBD patienthood and community in cyberspace

摘要: This thesis describes how patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease create moral order through participation in internet support groups. Drawing on computer-mediated ethnography and discursive analysis of interviews patients, I argue that the discourse "shared experience" unites this diagnostically heterogeneous group into an idealized community. Patients describe their practices ways suggest they are behaving both empirically ethically. then discuss "awareness," as ideal property patienthood, shapes acceptable being ill. My conclusion articulates dilemmas faced by IBD patients-whose sense normalcy is limited polluting unpredictable symptoms-with theorizing "biosociality." economy online interaction, which involves exchanges "experience," "information," "support," generates sentiments similarity shared interest. approach differs from much research patient groups, takes patients' experiences apriori rather than constructions.