Understanding chronicity of type 1 diabetes as a thief of time
Keywords:
Anthropology of time, diabetes, inner time, chronic disease, biographical disruptionAbstract
In this paper, I explore how people with type 1 diabetes in Serbia perceive time, their condition over time and what they consider to be the key events in their lives. Unlike most papers within anthropology and related sciences, in which the temporality of chronic diseases is studied either from the point of view of medical workers or by using only one temporal structure, in this paper, in addition to the concept of calendar and clock time, I use other temporal structures, which more applicable to the life of people with type 1 diabetes in certain situations. These are past-present-future time, biographical time (biographical disruption), inner time and fatalistic orientation towards the future. I demonstrate that in studying the time of people with type 1 diabetes, one should not use only one temporal structure, because in this way important knowledge of the subjective experience of a chronic disease is lost. I indicate that the care of diabetes is omnipresent and all-pervading in the everyday life that type 1 diabetes steals. Methodologically, I apply the biographical method to semi-structured interviews, and discover two new understandings of time introduced by people with type 1 diabetes.
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