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The “larger picture” that appears to me on re-reading this volume of essays might be described as a patchwork of studies bound together by a common thread—an interest in a range of narratives that deepen our understanding of disease, disability or trauma. The “patchwork quilt” metaphor is more appropriate than a “mosaic” one would be, as it can be extended to allude to other aspects of the research project represented here. In a quilt, the pieces joined together are traditionally fragments that do not fit in anywhere else. They become part of a design thanks to a connecting frame that imposes coherence on the disparate parts. For many of the writers of these essays, the topic they broach is outside or at the margins of their usual (or former) disciplinary area of research. The importance of their topic to a larger body of knowledge and inquiry only emerged when they met others with similar “unfitting” preoccupations. In the case of this book, the individual essays serve as samplers to illustrate various patterns of analysis and recurring motifs. Each disciplinary or professional approach reveals one aspect of the whole picture, and the product of the combination is multi-layered. Also, a quilt often is constructed collaboratively by a number of people , usually women, using a supportive frame that subsequently disappears . It is this frame that allows the different layers of the quilt (surface, stuffing, backing) to be held together as a quilting stitch pierces the layers and makes the quilt solid. This stitch (in French the point de capiton) is the image Lacan1 uses to convey the relationship in language between a chain of “signifiers” (such as a narrative) and shifting “signifieds,” implying both the “real” experience concerned and the meanings assigned to 297 valerie raoul Postscript Un-fitting Stories, Un-disciplined Research them. Meanings are elusive, and have to be pinned down, provisionally, in specific contexts. One element is joined to another by a tentative thread, a vulnerable stitch (suture) that evokes scar tissue. The narrative quilt may also be seen as a protective covering, enabling cicatrization of a “narcissistic wound,” a blow to the psyche that may also, in the case of disease, disability, or trauma, be an actual blow to the body. From this psychoanalytic perspective, such narratives convey experiences that are “real” in the Lacanian sense: they intrude into our lives, destroying previous patterns, and we cannot immediately understand them as they do not fit into the symbolic order but disrupt it. Narrative allows their reinstatement into that order by inscribing meaning, and re-asserting control. The introductions to this volume and to the individual sections draw the parts together by weaving a narrative or script about stories of disease , disability, and trauma. In this postscript, I will discuss the hidden frame that allowed this collaborative endeavour to happen—the process of forming an interdisciplinary team, composed largely of women and drawn together by a desire to understand how narratives function in relation to representations of the body in states of “dis-ease” and “dis-ability” or wounded by trauma. This exercise had a dual impact, as it not only changed what we see, but enabled us to see differently. As we initially engaged in cross-disciplinary dialogue and debate about the forms and functions of narratives of disease, disability, and trauma, we were all theoretically aware that each discipline adopts a different perspective on what is worth knowing and how to go about pursuing that knowledge ; each disciplinary culture tells differing stories about objects and methods of inquiry. In practice, we discovered that it is only by juxtaposing our own familiar narrative with other, competing accounts and interpretations that a multi-faceted, complex structure can be perceived. We undertook explorations of foreign territory, learning each other’s language in order to begin to understand, abandoning our previous sense of mastery of a technical discourse and a particular body of knowledge in the process. Some participants did not continue the journey, preferring to return to their home base. Exposing oneself to other people’s academic cultures can be alienating. In this sense, research that does not fit into disciplinary parameters can be seen as somewhat analogous to the experience of disease, disability , or trauma, since it may entail a more or less conscious fear of contagion or sense of disempowerment. As Susan Sontag (1977) first suggested , to be ill is to enter an unfamiliar land; to be a stranger or foreigner; to have to redefine...

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