Auto-ethnography and ‘chimeric-thinking’: A phenomenological reconsideration of illness and alterity

Pini, S. (2022). Auto-ethnography and ‘chimeric-thinking’: A phenomenological reconsideration of illness and alterity. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 33(1), 34-46. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/taja.12420

This paper tackles the concept of alterity through an embodied perspective. By questioning my lived experience of cancer and how illness—as a disruptive event (Carel, 2008, 2016, 2021)—enables philosophical reflection and the exploration of ‘other’ ways of being-in-the-world (Merleau-Ponty 2012 [1945]), I ask if an embodied ‘chimeric-thinking’ can be used to question established notions of alterity and reshape our relationship with ‘otherness’ (Leistle 2015, 2016b). Building on a phenomenological approach to illness (Carel 2012, 2014, 2016, 2021), and a feminist post-humanist approach (Haraway 1990, 1991, 2016), I present a case in which an autoethnographic and phenomenological approach focused on embodied experience may help revise dominant perspectives, providing access to understanding and engaging with profound biopsychosocial and somatic transformations.

Best Article Prize Australian Anthropological Society (AAS) 2022