WHY DO I KEEP CHANGING MY MIND ABOUT MY DISSERTATION TOPIC?
Seriously, sometimes I just want to do this to myself:
It might knock some sense into me, and in my new-found wisdom I might stick on one topic.
I mentioned in the last post that I want to do my individual studies project [dissertation] on depression, self and identity. The idea came into my mind last week whilst I was reading Sally Brampton's Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression. I have neither the book nor the few notes I made on it with me at the moment (they are back in London, waiting patiently on my desk), but I remember a few lines that really stuck out for me. Brampton mentions at one point that depression is a disease in which you lose yourself, that it is one of unexplained, unbearable loneliness, and also states "I am a depressive".
Among others, these three statements reminded me of one of the topics in my medical anthropology module from last year; Selfhood, Personhood and the Body. It was inevitably going to be one of my favourite topics out of all those I was fortunate to study last year, because my favourite thing from the year previously was my research and subsequent essay regarding Mary Douglas' quotation "what is carved on human flesh is an image of society" (or words to that effect - this was two years ago, I can't remember the phrase exactly). I then decided to write an essay last year on "Powerful bodies: use and modification amongst vulnerable women", and it was definitely one of my best that year. I'm very proud of it, even if I do say so myself.
I think it's because I really, really enjoyed the subject matter. Two of the books I mention in it - Hunger: An Unnatural History by Sharman Apt Russell and Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa by Jean Jacobs Brumberg. The way we think, and use, our bodies is fascinating. The fact that society influences our way of thinking should be obvious, but we often don't pay much attention to it. Obviously everyone is aware that Western media nowadays shows lots of skinny girls, but I think it's interesting to take that one step further and learn about how there was a huge increase in cases of anorexia and bulimia in Fiji in the mid-1990s once television was introduced to the country [1]. That they didn't want to be slimmer for many of the reasons women in America or the UK want to be slimmer (so that potential sexual partners find them attractive), but because they associated the way the women in American media looked with qualities such as confidence, assertiveness and power, often related [in their minds] to economic success.
I hope this all makes sense to anyone reading this. I've got a terrible cold at the moment so my head is a little fuzzy, and I'm not being as precise with my wording as if I were writing an essay. I'm hoping you're able to follow this.
Anyway, the bodies and Fiji reading popped up on the identity week's revision readings along with several others, three of which really grabbed my attention. Actually, two of these were from the topic "healing techniques of modern societies", but for the purposes of revision I lumped them all together into one topic. One of the readings was on how Western medicine is learned, and it mentions the dualism of mind/body that is so seemingly clear cut in Western society. It suggested that biomedicine objectifies the patient and makes them feel more machine-like (I can go explain this in another post at a later date, but for now, please take my word for it?). Scheper-Hughs and Lock (1997) adds to this that Western science and clinical medicine has a fundamental opposition between spirit and matter, mind and body, real and unreal, to the extent that social information is almost deemed irrelevant to "real" biomedical diagnosis. It is in the body or it is in the mind. Pain is either physical or mental.
Sally Brampton disagrees. She tells us that there is no clear reason why people become depressed, and that whilst it is a mental condition, she was most certainly in physical pain at times. This, to me, is interesting.
Scheper-Hughs and Lock also talk about identity and personhood as related to the individual or society. They mention that in traditional Japan there is a culture of social relativism - one's self-identity changes with the social context. We don't really have that in the West, or at least we think we don't. We tend to see self-identity as a very individual, personally malleable thing, something which we can create by consuming, but which is also fixed in a way - Brampton mentions losing herself. We have a fixed idea of who "we" are. My mind made the connection between her talking about the loneliness involved in an illness where you have lost yourself, and the individual/social person idea.
There was another article my mind managed to connect to these regarding drugs and medication, but this has gone on far too long already and I'm too tired to look up exactly what it said.
So yeah, as you can see (or maybe you can't - I'm really, really unsure about how clear all that rambling was, and I'm very aware of how little sense anthropologists can often seem to make), I have a lot of things running around in my head about why I'd like to look at the self and depression.
But...
There's always a but...
I bought this book the other day:
My sister, O, read the blurb and instantly said it sounded like my sort of book. All about remaking the body and how we're influenced to do so.
And I've seen a few books on anorexia recently that I'd really like to read.
And I've got another upstairs that I'm planning on taking with me to Lanzarote next week.
And now I cannot get mum's suggestion out of my head, that I should be doing my dissertation on anorexia. I don't know why the topic interests me so much! Is it because I love food so much? Or because I have a fixative / obsessive personality, and know that if I'm not careful sometimes when trying to diet I could very easily end up going far too many days without eating enough. And by that, I mean 600-800 calories starting to sound like an awful lot. So whilst I've never, thankfully, suffered from an eating disorder, maybe part of my mind feels a connection to those that do, or to those that like to be in control but get out of hand? I don't know. I think I'm possibly talking rubbish here. All I really mean is that it is a topic that holds a great deal of interest to me, and I'm uncertain which of the two dissertation topics I should pursue.
I think probably the depression one. I think I could write an essay on eating disorders as part of my Anthropology and Psychiatry module - I've seen several of the books that I've already read on one of the previous years' reading list.
I can't tell you how excited I am for this module, and it's not until second term! Seriously, I was looking through the reading list making a note of everything I want to read straight off, and there was about twenty books. One was just for the title - Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie. Who can read a title like that and not want to read the book?
In non-dissertation news, I don't know whether or not to take my laptop to Lanzarote. I took it to Nerja last year, and everyone asked me why on earth I did, then discussed behind my back how antisocial it was etc. Then every single other person on the holiday used it at various points during the week, and it was useful to find maps and timetables and tickets etc for things we wanted to do. In the end, very useful. This time I want it partly in order to be antisocial for a little bit. I want some me-time. I also want to make a start on my dissertation, but I'm not sure how much I'll actually get done whilst on holiday. Part of me thinks I could get a fair few readings done, as my mind is very much on the topics at hand, but the other part of me thinks I'll cave to peer pressure and not do anything.
However, my budget for the holiday is very limited, and I already know it's three times smaller than a number of other people's. This means I'm not always going to be able to go on all the trips out that everyone else does. I know one day people want to go to a water park. I'm not particularly interested in water parks, and that will cost money, so I might see if I can beg off that? I've got a bad cold anyway, if that's an excuse. If they're all out all day, whilst I'll have books with me it might be nice to also have my laptop, as I know there's wifi in some areas.
It's also more baggage to carry. It's a heavy laptop.
And part of me doesn't want to be away from the internet for a week because of everything I'll "miss" in the fandoms I pay attention to and other pop-culture issues. Which I actually enjoy keeping up with, from an "this whole phenomenon of fandoms and celebrity and etc is interesting" sort of way, not just a "I want to know what Benedict Cumberbatch is up to" sort of way (because honestly, I find it really creepy to actively research what another person is doing. If the Sherlock tag on tumblr tells you something, that's fine, but googling actors for their latest news is a little creepy and stalker-ish, and I've felt very bad whenever I've done it. Because, yes, I've done it. Only on a few occasions when I'm wanting to know the follow-up to something else I've read about, but I've felt weird doing it all the same). A week is a heck of a long time on the internet! When I spent more time on Reddit, 24 hours away could sometimes be enough for me to have no idea what half the posts on the front page were talking about. I'm used to being connected and aware, and I like that state just as much as I like putting the laptop down and ignoring it all.
But I think I like the choice - I have the option to be connected, and the option to ignore it. If I don't take my laptop on holiday, I don't have that option at all.
This post is too long and is no longer making sense to me.
If you've got this far, thank you for sticking with me!
This cold needs to go away soon.
[1] Becker, A. 2004. Television, Disordered Eating and Young Women in Fiji.
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