Eli, Karin (2014) An embodied belonging : amenorrhea and anorexic subjectivities. Medicine Anthropology Theory, 1 (1). p. 53. doi:10.17157/mat.1.1.200

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Abstract

Until the publication of the DSM-V in 2013, amenorrhea was one of the four criteria that comprised anorexia nervosa. Diagnostically, amenorrhea played a definitional role, dividing the ‘strictly’ anorexic from their ‘subthreshold’, menstruating peers; however, the implications that menstrual cessation, and menstruation itself, held for the lived realities and identities of women with anorexia remain under-explored. In this article, I examine the positioning of menstruation and amenorrhea in the narratives of Israeli women diagnosed with eating disorders during the eras of the DSM-IV and DSM-IV-TR. I find that the participants’ narrative uses of amenorrhea mirrored, and at times explicitly engaged with, the official diagnosis of anorexia nervosa. Notably, although the participants invoked amenorrhea as a defining sign of illness, they did not cast menstruation as a sign of health rather, they spoke of their menstrual periods as contradicting their anorexic-identified selves. Amenorrhea, then, emerged as central in the embodied making of anorexic subjectivities.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Divisions:	Faculty of Medicine > Warwick Medical School > Health Sciences Faculty of Medicine > Warwick Medical School > Health Sciences > Social Science & Systems in Health (SSSH) Faculty of Medicine > Warwick Medical School
Journal or Publication Title:	Medicine Anthropology Theory
ISSN:	2405-691X
Official Date:	2014
Dates:	Date Event 2014 Published
Volume:	1
Number:	1
Page Range:	p. 53
DOI:	10.17157/mat.1.1.200
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access

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