Taking ‘Patient’ Histories
This session will focus on how scholars can engage with ‘patient’ narratives in both oral testimonies and archival records responsibly, in ways that avoid replicating medicalization and pathologization.
This week, we ask that participants explore the following three pieces:
1. Michael Worboys, "The non-patient's view." In Patient Voices in Britain, 1840–1948, edited by Anne Hanley and Jessica Meyer, Manchester University Press, 2021.
2. Katrina Ackerman, “Before Mifegymiso: A History of Rural Women’s Access to Abortion” Active History, 24 November 2016.
3. Abortion Diary Entry 152: Anonymous, 65 (Poughkeepsie, NY 1969) [Podcast]
Further Readings:
1. Roy Porter, “The Patient’s View: Doing Medical History from Below,” Theory and Society 14, no.2 (1985): 175-198.
2. Warwick Anderson, “The Case of the Archive,” Critical Inquiry 39, no.3 (2013): 532-547.
3. Jessica Meyer and Alexia Moncrieff, “Family not to be informed? The ethical use of historical medical documentation.’ In Patient Voices in Britain, 1840–1948, edited by Anne Hanley and Jessica Meyer, Manchester University Press, 2021.
This week, we will be joined by Dr. Louise Williams, who will share some reproductive health materials held at Edinburgh’s Lothian’s Health Services Archive and will help guide discussions on the ethics and practice of using patient histories in historical research.
As always, readings can be accessed via this session's downloadable ZIP file (below). Both required and further readings are included in the file. However, discussions will center around the Worboys and Ackerman piece.
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