ABSTRACT

As distinct from disease, which is a biological or psycho-biological process, and illness, which is individually experienced, sickness is the representation of ill-health in social relations. Sickness is involved when people are granted leave from normal obligations on condition that they take appropriate steps to get well. The granting of leave from normal obligations is a situated activity - it occurs in a given time and place, with a cast of social actors. As Frankenberg suggests, it is a ‘cultural performance’. In the commonsense view, a sickness absence is either genuine or fraudulent (malingering). On interviewing people about absences in the previous two weeks, they were sometimes frank about taking time off without being sick or for any other reason that would excuse it in management’s terms. Fellow workers, acting on expectations that are widely shared, are an important social control over the transition to the sick role.