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

创伤性脑损伤是每年数以百万计的美国人遭受的一种急性脑损伤。这种伤害在很大程度上是看不见的，人们对此知之甚少，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的终身后果。在这项由该奖项支持的研究中，亚利桑那大学博士生奥斯汀·W·邓肯将在埃里克·普莱蒙斯博士和苏珊·J·肖博士的指导下，调查伤害在当代美国的意义变化和社会文化后果。其目标是了解意义是如何产生的，以及个体幸存者与包括政府和非政府(NGO)政策制定者在内的周围人的身体经历和社会互动是如何改变和改变意义的。研究人员将在三个不同但相互关联的水平上追踪脑外伤是如何成为一种慢性病的：1)个体脑损伤幸存者；2)照顾者、家人、朋友和同事；以及3)政府和非政府政策和计划。数据将通过在华盛顿州西雅图的密集实地考察来收集。研究人员将采用混合方法，包括：与社区、组织和TBI支持小组进行参与者观察；不限成员名额的利益相关者访谈；焦点小组；对个别幸存者和与他们最亲近的人进行的个案研究；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、社会和政治领域的伤害治疗和康复后的后果。最后，通过调查一个物理脑损伤的社会影响的具体例子，研究结果将有助于从新的理论上理解大脑在物理、社会和政治机构的运作中所起的作用。

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.