Being-in-the-World of the Sociological Imagination: Understanding Living with and Beyond Cancer
Citation
Pascal, J. & Sagan, O. (2017) Being-in-the-World of the Sociological Imagination: Understanding Living with and Beyond Cancer, , , no. 384, pp. 278-290, London
Abstract
In this chapter we bring together both C. Wright Mills' sociological and Martin
Heidegger's philosophical ways of seeing the world, with the aim of exploring
the lived experience of people living with and beyond cancer (PLWBCs). It is
important to note at the outset that this chapter is not about dying, or palliative
care, but about the meanings created in the face of a cancer diagnosis, with its
concomitant possibilities for death. People living with and beyond cancer were
once referred to as survivors- and considered the lucky- ones, in that they
escaped death. What often goes unrecognized are the losses, which need to be
grieved, yet are often rendered invisible in everyday life and everyday discourses
of remission and survival.