ABSTRACT
Embodiment, performance and healing are concepts that cover vast and plural fields for research, and they can by no means be fully discussed in this one chapter. I will narrow down the discussion by focusing on certain intersections between these concepts with the aim to illuminate our understanding of the human self as it is related to experiences of illness and well-being. Taking this approach, the chapter argues self to be embodied and constituted within, across and between diverse cultural and social life-worlds that structure and direct individuals’ everyday life experiences (see Grønseth 2013). This position reflects how I explore senses of self and personhood less as culturally established concepts and more as experiences of actual behaviour and negotiations of interactions in peoples’ everyday lives, thus linking the building of personhood and the sense of self to the realm of embodiment and sensorial experiences (see also Strathern and Stewart 2011:393). Furthermore, this approach arises out of my study on Tamil refugees as they visit Norwegian health-care centres with various illnesses and diffuse bodily pains such as headaches, stomach pain, dizziness, fevers, fatigue and sleeplessness (Grønseth 2010a). While the study starts out from a medical model focusing on illnesses within the context of doctor–patient relations, it has turned to a client-centred model including the wider context of Tamil social relations and experiences of not only pain, but also pleasure and well-being. Through this move I have become attuned to embodied tensions in everyday life, including performance and ritual practices within a quest for health and well-being. When paying attention to performative practices, I further came to recognize the impact of relations between humans and non-humans, as the latter includes gods, material objects and visual images that are seen to interact in the human experiences of self, illness and well-being (Grønseth 2012).
