Doctoral Dissertation Research: Navigations of Chronic Illness and Autonomy among Miskitu Lobster Divers in Atlantic Nicaragua

博士生Clinton D. Humphrey将在Paul V. Kroskrity博士的指导下进行研究，研究社会、政治和经济背景如何影响人们对自己身体和心理经历的理解。这个项目很重要，因为它将有助于不断增长的社会科学研究，研究社会文化过程如何配置个人在生病时关注、感知和概念化身体感觉的方式。这项研究将在尼加拉瓜自治大西洋海岸与米斯基图龙虾潜水员一起进行14个月。米斯基图潜水员的生计依赖于深海潜水，但它经常导致慢性和衰弱的减压病，也被称为减压病。研究人员将使用一种独特的视频分析技术来描述话语、具体互动模式和文化资源如何塑造Miskitu与这种疾病的相遇。他对龙虾潜水员的视频记录将使他能够对话语、手势、凝视和身体运动进行微观分析，以确定这些潜水员如何在独特的海底环境中协调他们的感官和导航他们的工作身体，同时注意危险和疾病的迹象。与目标研究参与者的后续访谈和参与者观察将探索疾病的当地解释。总的来说，这些数据将指导一项关于米斯基图龙虾潜水员如何感知、忍受和努力理解他们在不同社会和环境背景下身体上的疾病的调查。本研究以独特的微观分析方式推进感官体验的研究，强调话语、体现-交际互动和政治-经济过程。研究人员将与当地旨在帮助这些商业潜水员及其家人的项目分享研究结果。支持这项研究也支持了研究生的教育。

Doctoral student Clinton D. Humphrey, supervised by Dr. Paul V. Kroskrity, will undertake research on how social, political, and economic contexts affect people's understanding of their own physical and psychological experience. The project is important because it will contribute to a growing body of research in the social sciences that examines how socio-cultural processes may configure the ways in which individuals attend to, perceive, and conceptualize bodily sensations in times of illness. The research will be conducted for 14 months with Miskitu lobster divers on the Autonomous Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. The Miskitu divers' livelihoods depend on deep diving but it too frequently results in chronic and debilitating decompression illness, also known as the bends. The researcher will use a unique video analysis technique to delineate how discourse, patterns of embodied interaction, and cultural resources shape Miskitu encounters with this illness. His video recordings of lobster divers will allow him to conduct microanalyses of discourse, gesture, gaze, and bodily movement, to determine how these divers attune their senses and navigate their working bodies in the unique undersea environment as they simultaneously attend to signs of danger and sickness. Follow-up interviews and participant observation with targeted research participants will explore local explanations of illnesses. Collectively, these data will guide an investigation of how Miskitu lobster divers perceive, endure, and endeavor to make sense of the ailments they feel in their bodies in different social and environmental contexts.This study advances research on sensory experience with a distinctive micro-analytical emphasis on discourse, embodied-communicative interaction, and political-economic processes. The researcher will share research findings with local programs designed to assist these commercial divers and their families. Supporting this research also supports the education of a graduate student.