Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Social Life of TBI: The embodied and constructed meaning of moderate/severe Traumatic Brain Injury in the United States

创伤性脑损伤（TBI）是一种急性脑损伤，每年有数百万美国人遭受这种损伤。这种伤害在很大程度上是看不见的，人们对其知之甚少，而且几乎总是会给幸存者、他们的照顾者、家人、朋友和更广泛的社区带来广泛和终身的后果。在这项由该奖项支持的研究中，亚利桑那大学的博士生Austin W. Duncan将在Eric Plemons博士和Susan J Shaw博士的指导下，调查当代美国受伤的变化意义和社会文化后果。目标是了解意义是如何产生的，以及它是如何通过个体幸存者与周围人（包括政府和非政府组织（NGO）决策者）的身体经历和社会互动而改变和改变的。研究人员将从三个不同但相互关联的层面追踪创伤性脑损伤如何成为一种慢性疾病：1)个体创伤性脑损伤幸存者；2)照顾者、家人、朋友和同事；3)政府和非政府的政策和方案。数据将通过在华盛顿州西雅图的密集实地调查收集。研究人员将采用混合方法，包括：与社区、组织和TBI支持团体进行参与者观察；开放式利益相关者访谈；焦点小组;个案研究个别幸存者和他们最亲近的人；以及对国家和民间社会工作人员和政策制定者的半结构化访谈。综上所述，这些数据来源将使研究人员能够访问和评估个人、社会和政治领域受伤后的治疗和康复后果。最后，通过研究物理脑损伤的社会影响的具体例子，研究结果将有助于对大脑在身体、社会和政治机构的功能中所起作用的新的理论理解。

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is an acute physical injury of the brain suffered by millions of Americans every year. Such injuries are largely invisible, poorly understood, and almost always lead to extensive and life-long consequences for survivors, their caregivers, families, friends, and wider communities. In the research supported by this award, University of Arizona doctoral student Austin W. Duncan, under the supervision of Dr. Eric Plemons and Dr. Susan J Shaw, will investigate the shifting meaning and sociocultural ramifications of the injury in the contemporary United States. The goal is to understand how the meaning is created and how it changes and is changed by bodily experiences and social interactions of individual survivors with those around them, including governmental and non-governmental (NGO) policymakers. The researcher will trace how TBI becomes a chronic condition at three distinct but inter-related levels: 1) individual TBI survivors; 2) caregivers, families, friends, and associates; and 3) governmental and non-governmental policies and programs. Data will be collected through intensive fieldwork in Seattle, Washington. The researcher will employ a mixed methods approach, including: participant-observation with community, organizations, and TBI support groups; open-ended stakeholder interviews; focus groups; case studies with individual survivors and those closest to them; and semi-structured interviews with state and civil society staff and policymakers. Taken together, these data sources will allow the researcher to access and assess the post-treatment and rehabilitation consequences of the injury across individual, social, and political realms. Finally, by investigating a concrete example of the social effects of physical brain damage, findings from the research will contribute to new theoretical understanding of the role that the brain plays in the functioning of the physical, social, and political bodies.