ABSTRACT
McKenzie and Crouch utilise Giddens’ concept of identity as a starting point for their discussion of survivorship. They argue that the customary conventions of human discourse are vulnerable to being undermined by an event such as cancer and that the resulting mantle of uncertainty and risk can appear as ‘unwelcome omens of hazard’ (2004: 142); voicing fears may be discouraged and cancer survivorship identity may need to be subsumed to resume ‘normal’ relationships. They claim that ‘Not only do cancer survivors feel isolated in their pain, but their very identities – indelibly inscribed by the cancer experience – are pushed to the margins of the social fabric in which selfhood is embedded’ (McKenzie and Crouch 2004: 143).
