Drawing on theory and empirical research, this book provides an analysis of the intersections between LGBTQ+ identification and chronic illness. Chapters focus on the theoretical meaning of chronic illness as a queer notion, as well as the lived experiences of chronically ill LGBTQ+ people. The author analyzes chronic illness as an experience that interrogates the normative notions of time, (in)visibility, and disability. Interweaving notions of heteronormativity and able-bodiedness as interwoven and mutually dependent, this book argues that the experience of chronic illness through LGBTQ+ embodiment presents the potential to imagine bodies differently.This book will be useful for scholars and students in Disability Studies, Queer Studies, and Gender Studies.
Author(s): Mara Pieri
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 162
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
About the Author
Chapter 1: Introduction
1 Hic Sunt Dracones?
2 Time, Care, (In)visibility
3 Chapters Outline
References
Chapter 2: A Queer-Crip Perspective on Chronic Illness
1 Introduction
2 Chronic Illness: Biographical Disruption or Normal Chaos of Life
2.1 The Prismatic Nature of Chronic Illness
2.2 Chronic Illness and LGBTQ+ People
3 Against Normalcy: Crip Theory, Disability, and Illness
3.1 The Emergence of Crip Theory
3.2 Cripping Chronic Illness
4 Queer-Crip Temporalities: A Proposal
4.1 Chrononormativity: The Obligation to (Re)produce, Be Happy, and Get Well
4.2 Too Much of the Wrong Thing at the Wrong Time: Queering Kronos
4.3 Can We Queer and Crip Time?
References
Chapter 3: LGBTQ+ Rights and Access to Healthcare in Italy and Portugal
1 Introduction
2 Southern Europe: God, Family, and Austerity
2.1 Catholic Culture
2.2 Familism
3 Economic Precariousness
4 LGBTQ+ Rights Between Tensions and Surprise
4.1 The Politics of Indifference: Italy
4.2 The Avalanche of Legal Changes: Portugal
4.3 Healthcare and Welfare
5 Methodology and Challenges of the Research
5.1 Doing Queer-Crip Research: The Tools
5.2 The Sample and the Fieldwork
5.3 The Inside Job
5.4 The Wounded Researcher
References
Chapter 4: Intimacy and Sexuality: Weaving Significant Relationships
1 Introduction
2 The Closer Ones: Negotiating Identities with Families and Friends
2.1 Inherited Families: The Struggles as LGBTQ+ and Ill
2.2 Alternating Closets: Friendships
2.3 Friendship: A Matter of Time and Place
3 Spaces of Intimacy
3.1 (In)visibility in the Time of Dating
3.2 Desire, Communication, and Sexual Practices: When Illness Comes to Bed
3.3 Bodies That Change, Relationships That Change
4 Able-Bodied and Reproductive? The Pressures to Normalcy
4.1 Being Ill Together
4.2 The Procreative Imperative
4.3 Imaginaries of LGBTQ+ Parenting
5 Conclusions
References
Chapter 5: Negotiating Care Between Silences, (In)visibility, and Disobedience
1 Introduction
2 Negotiating Relationships of Care
2.1 Care as a Duty
2.2 Care as a Form of Control
2.3 Care as a Choice
2.4 Care as a Gift
3 The Unseen Faces of Care
3.1 Not Only Care Recipients: Narratives of Care Providers
3.2 Mental Health
3.3 Learning Self-care
4 Healthcare Contexts and Medical Power
4.1 Being an LGBTQ+ Patient
4.2 Sexism, Fatphobia, and Discrimination in the Doctor’’s Room
4.3 Disobedient Patients: Grappling with Medical Power
5 Conclusions
References
Chapter 6: Precarious Lives. Navigating Through Work, Public Spaces, and Activism
1 Introduction
2 Precariousness at Work and Because of Work
2.1 (In)visibility at Work
2.2 A Necessary Destiny: Precariousness
2.3 Don’t Leave to Live: Family Ties and Cohabitation
3 Inhabiting the Public Space
3.1 Accessibility in Space and Time
3.2 The (In)visibility Dilemma in the Public Space
3.3 Only for Spectators: Performing for the Social Gaze
4 The Politicisation of Pain in Activism
4.1 The Epistemology of Ignorance in LGBTQ+ Spaces
4.2 The Bionic Bodies of LGBTQ+ Activists
4.3 An Ensemble of Atoms: Activism on Illness
5 Conclusions
References
Chapter 7: The Emergence of the Chroniqueers
1 Introduction
2 Blurring Boundaries of Time, Care, and (In)visibility
2.1 Queering and Cripping Time
2.2 Reimagining Care
2.3 Reconsidering (In)visibility
3 Back to This Scene: The Future and the Chroniqueers
3.1 The Unmapped
3.2 Hic Sunt Chroniqueers
References
Index
