Presented by Lee Kofman, PhD candidate

School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning

RMIT University

SCARRING: THE DISEMBODIED EMBODIMENTLived experiences of women affected by

permanent, non-facial scarring

SCARRING – A BRIEF OVERVIEW

1. In the developed world approximately 100 million people acquire scarring each year (Bayat et al 2003)

2. Scarring is often resistant to cosmetic procedures

3. Scarring is considered to be a disfigurement 4. Evidence suggests psychosocial difficulties are

common amongst people with disfigurements5. There is no current healthcare provision in

Australia targeted at emotional and social needs of people affected by permanent, non-facial scarring

SCARRING: THE DISEMBODIED EMBODIMENT

PROJECT SUMMARYa qualitative, exploratory study that will

investigate effects of permanent, non-facial scarring on the lived experiences of adult women.

The focus is on appearance-related effects of scarring on women’s sense of identity, their well being, life choices & life chances

How women cope, and in particular whether they employ deliberate strategies to cope, will be explored too, to ascertain whether these women have unmet needs.

Particular attention will be paid to the interplay between inner & outer dimensions

STUDY CONTEXT – BODY & WELL BEING IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETYThe

relationship

between identity

and body has

become symbioti

c

Today, in their search

for happiness, and even salvation,

people turn not to the soul, but

bodyIf we don’t possess a

‘presentable’ body, a

social punishment is expected. Especially if

we are women

For women, beauty has become an absolute, religious

imperative... a form of capital

STUDY CONTEXT

For far too long the attention has been on denouncing ‘perfect bodies’. It’s time we turned to investigating the feelings, the experiences and the sheer diversity of imperfect ones.

Elspeth Probyn (2004)

DOMINANT DISCOURSES ON SCARRING:TRIVIALISATION

‘Cool guys who live lives of action and adventure always have great stories about the scars they've gotten in their travels’ blogger http://www.montykins.com/mkins/000375.html

‘Scars are imprints of traumas once present and now left behind, vestiges that serve as distinct reminders of the injuries that body and psyche have encountered’ Rose Emily Rothenberg, therapist and author

‘To be wounded is to be opened to the world; it is to be pushed off the straight, fixed, and predictable path of certainty... one’s perception sharpens… through wounding one may enter a crossroads… from a superficial life of distance to a more intimate and penetrating awareness of being in a far richer place’ Dennis Patrick Slattery, therapist, academic & author

DOMINANT DISCOURSES ON SCARRING:MARGINALISATION

DOMINANT DISCOURSES ON SCARRING:DEMONISATION

SCARRING - BRINGING IN CONTEXT

What most scholars of the body have in common are their efforts to deconstruct the notion of corporeality as a merely ‘natural’, ‘organic’ entity

SCARRING - BRINGING IN CONTEXT

According to Robert Brain (1979), in some tribes scarification denotes the irreversible changes in the life of an individual, e.g. for women the birth of a child. Without them, the individuals’ experiences are not seen to have registered, their lives lack meaning and their bodies lack beauty.

Artist / photographer John

Broadbent

Understanding

disfigurements as a

contextual phenomen

on

EXISTING STUDIES OF SCARRING – AETIOLOGICAL FOCUS

Intentional scarification - body modification & self-harm

Traumatic aetiology, e.g. burnsOngoing/acute health problems, e.g. cancer

EXUSTING STUDIES OF SCARRING – VISIBILITY FOCUS

When literature is ‘embodied’ (focuses on appearance issues), it mainly researches the most visible – facial - scarring

However, literature cannot demonstrate consistently that visibility is a key variable in the impact of disfigurements on individuals

As a result, as Rumsey, Clarke, White, Wyn-Williams & Garlick (2004, p.445) suggest, ‘people with “minor” problems may be being overlooked’.

Permanent, non-facial scarring can arguably be viewed as a relatively minor disfigurement, since more often than not it can be concealed from the public gaze.

EXISTING STUDIES OF SCARRING – INDIVIDUAL/INTERPERSONAL FOCUS Psychological perspective dominates

studies of scarring Studies (mainly quantitative) are usually

not grounded in the social/cultural context Instead, language of individual pathology

dominates; body image is an important concept

Unclear correlation Theoretical frameworks – mostly

psychological scales or symbolic interactionist theory (Hoffman etc.)

SAMPLING PARAMETERS1. Gender limit: women 2. Age limit: adult women aged between twenty

one and sixty years3. Age limit of scarring: scarring has been

present for at least five years4. Aetiological limit: scarring has not been

associated with any known current and/or ongoing health issues and/or with physical impairments (self-selection)

5. To capture a range of experiences of scarring within the constraints of my sampling, I will attempt recruiting the widest possible range of respondents in terms of other variables, e.g. marital status, ethnicity and the variety of sizes and bodily locations of their scarring

MEANS OF RECRUITMENTPersonal & professional electronic networks Advertisement leaflets on noticeboards in

universities Advertisement leaflets in outpatient (e.g.

paramedical) clinics offering treatment for scarring in Melbourne

Advertisement on the RMIT website Possibly articles about the study in local

newspapers

METHODOLOGY: BRINGING IN CONTEXT & CREATIVITY

Semi-structured, in-depth interviews with open-ended questions

Creative methodology:

1. photolanguage cards

2. photo creation

3. creative writing techniques

FINAL NOTE:QUALITY OF LIFE AND DOMINANT DISCOURSES

‘People can discover how to relate to themselves and to others more positively when armed with images of themselves – images which counteract the stereotypes usually seen in the mass media’

Jo Spence

SELECTED REFERENCES Baudrillard, J 1998, The consumer society: myths & structures, SAGE Publications,

London Bayat, A, McGrouther, DA & Ferguson, MWJ 2003, ‘Skin scarring’, BMJ, vol.326,

no.7380, pp.88-92 Berry, B 2007, Beauty Bias: Discrimination and Social Power, Praeger, Westport Davis, LJ 2005, ‘Visualising the disabled body’ in Fraser, M & Greco, M (eds.), The

Body: A Reader, Routledge, London & New York, pp.167-181 Featherstone, M 2007, Consumer culture & postmodernism, SAGE, London Kent, G & Keohane, S 2001, ‘Social anxiety & disfigurement: the moderating effects

of fear of negative evaluation & past experience’, British Journal of Clinical Psychology, no. 40, March, pp.23-34

Kleve, L & Robinson, E 1999, ‘A survey of psychological need amongst adult burn-injured patients’, Burns, vol.25, no.7, November, pp.575-579

Kleve, L, Rumsey, N, Wyn-Williams, M & White, P 2002, ‘The effectiveness of cognitive-behavioural interventions provided at Outlook: a disfigurement support unit’, Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, vol.8, no.4, pp.387-395

Rumsey, N & Harcourt, D 2005, The Psychology of Appearance, Open University Press, New York

Schilling, C 1993, The body and social theory, Sage Publications, London

RECRUITMENT ADVERTISEMENT

As a PhD candidate at RMIT I am currently undertaking the first Australian study to explore lived experiences of women, who have non-facial scars. I am interested in hearing stories about what it feels like living as a woman with scarring in the contemporary world. The findings will have implications for providing a better healthcare to women with non-facial scarring.

Are you aged between 20 and 60? Have your non-facial scars been acquired at least five

years ago? If this is the case, and if your scarring is not related to any

ongoing health issues, I will love to hear from you. If you are interested in participating, and/or would like more information, please contact Lee Kofman on 04-19008292 or via email lee.kofman@rmit.edu.au

All communications will be strictly confidential.