Research Seminar in Cultural Anthropology: Time, memory and community in Traumatic Brain Injury rehabilitation

Research Seminar in Cultural Anthropology with Lee Gallagher

Due to its sudden and unexpected nature, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) can radically disrupt a person’s life, plunging them violently into forms of biological, medical and existential uncertainty and setting in motion a challenging, and often lifelong, period of adaptation as they come to terms with the various symptoms and difficulties that they are left with. Forwarding a version of post-traumatic subjectivity that is far more active and inventive than is often accounted for in the clinical literature surrounding brain injury, this presentation brings a close focus to the sometimes-surprising forms of care, collective modes of repair, and moments of solidarity that emerge between attendees of a TBI rehabilitation centre in Manchester, UK. Through utilising an existential-phenomenological approach, with a particular emphasis on temporality, the presentation primarily discusses these issues in relation to an attendee struggling with severe memory problems, showing how simple, everyday forms of domesticity and care at the centre, such as cooking meals and sharing stories with others about her past, allow this woman to maintain a vital nourishing connection to her pre-TBI life.

The presentation thus argues that these specifically temporal and relational aspects of care form an important resource in her rehabilitative trajectory. As I will show, they allow her to build up a sense of safety and stability in an otherwise precarious present, which then also allows her to start reengaging with the future in new ways. The examples I will talk about in the presentation therefore show just how important and life-sustaining these informal forms of care can become for people when they are navigating the aftermath of a critical and life-limiting illness such as TBI.

Lee Gallagher is an anthropologist and post-doctoral researcher within the Engaging Vulnerability research program at Uppsala University. His research explores the lives of people affected by Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), focusing on post-TBI rehabilitation practices in the UK. He employs a medical anthropological approach grounded in existentialist and phenomenological ideas, questioning the dominance of clinical/pathological registers and neuro-essentialism. His work aims to enrich anthropology by broadening approaches to the study of critical illness, recovery, and repair. He currently investigates how vulnerability becomes a vital resource for those living with TBI.