Candida and the discursive terms of undefined illness: ghostly matters, leaky bodies and the dietary taming of uncertainty

• Author / Creator

  Overend, Alissa

• This dissertation examines the discursive terms upon which people come to understand their experiences with a yeast-related disorder known speculatively within biomedical practice as “Candida”. Following the critical interrogations posed by feminist and poststructural theorizings, I aim not to prove or disprove Candida’s etiological case. My aim, rather, is to question what can be learned about the social workings of undefined illness through attending to how people talk about their experiences with Candida. I am concerned both with people’s experiences of Candida, and in how these illness experiences come to be structured in and through the wider discursive framings of biomedicine, gender and dietary discipline. As Candida continues to emerge as unintelligible—and thus disorienting—form of illness, the urgency lies, I argue, not only in representing these often nebulous illness experiences, but also in questioning how these illness experiences come to be shaped.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Ghostly matters
  • Candida
  • Food discipline
  • Leaky bodies
  • Experiences of undefined illness

• Graduation date

  Fall 2010

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R30S7F

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.