Vol. 28 No. 82 (2021): Homenaje a Michelle Z. Rosaldo
Miscelánea

The clinical act as a space for the production of narratives in tension

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  • Josefina Ramírez Velázquez

Published 2022-03-04

Keywords

  • Doctor-patient relationship, clinical act, narrative, reflective ethnography.

How to Cite

The clinical act as a space for the production of narratives in tension. (2022). Cuicuilco Revista De Ciencias Antropológicas, 28(82), 191-217. https://revistas.inah.gob.mx/index.php/cuicuilco/article/view/17655

Abstract

In this work I analyze the way in which medical sociology and anthropology have studied the doctor-patient relationship; as a result of the said study, I propose another analytical route which, taking into account the social actor and the narrative as a form of thought, sensitivity, discourse and cultural praxis, approaches this relationship as a clinical act that reveals contexts of action and interaction in which verbal and non-verbal exchanges take place. Thus, the clinical act is a substantially narrative social fact, given that exchanges between different social actors are generated by producing complex narratives with plots that reveal them as narrators of a situation in tension.
From a reflective and relational ethnography perspective, in a tertiary care center located in Mexico City, I present a description and analysis that reveals narrative plots that show how medical interaction interrupts, blurs and silences the patient’s voice for the sake of his biomedical translation.

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