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。这些伤害在很大程度上是不可见的，人们对它们知之甚少，而且几乎总是会对幸存者、他们的照顾者、家人、朋友和更广泛的社区造成广泛和终身的后果。在该奖项支持的研究中，亚利桑那大学博士生奥斯汀W。邓肯，在埃里克·普莱蒙博士和苏珊·J·肖博士的监督下，将调查当代美国伤害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，以及它是如何变化的，以及幸存者个人与周围人，包括政府和非政府组织决策者的身体体验和社会互动是如何变化的。研究人员将追踪TBI如何在三个不同但相互关联的层面上成为一种慢性疾病：1）TBI幸存者个人; 2）照顾者，家人，朋友和同事; 3）政府和非政府政策和计划。数据将通过在华盛顿的西雅图进行密集的实地调查收集。研究人员将采用混合方法，包括：与社区，组织和TBI支持团体的参与者观察;开放式利益相关者访谈;焦点小组;与个别幸存者和最接近他们的人的案例研究;以及与国家和民间社会工作人员和政策制定者的半结构化访谈。总之，这些数据源将使研究人员能够访问和评估在个人，社会和政治领域受伤的治疗后和康复后果。最后，通过调查物理脑损伤的社会影响的一个具体例子，研究结果将有助于对大脑在物理，社会和政治机构的功能中所起的作用进行新的理论理解。

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.