B. Gouri
Understanding Leukaemia and Socio-Political reverberation through Bless the Blood
B. Gouri
Vellore Institute of Technology
bgouri26@gmail.com
Sunitha V.
Vellore Institute of Technology
Aim: Leukemia is a broad term for cancers of the blood cells with an estimated new cases in 2024 of 62,770 and death rate of 23,670 in the same year, according to the National Cancer Institute. The type of leukemia depends on the type of blood cell that becomes cancer and whether it grows quickly or slowly. Patients with Leukemia undergo tremendous stress associated with their diagnosis and treatment. Along with the physiological symptoms like fatigue, nausea, vomiting, pain, insomnia, and loss of appetite etc, psycho-social concerns impose an additional burden on the patients and their families. This can lead to depression, anxiety, suicide tendencies, adjustment issues, mania, and other psychiatric comorbidities. The needs and concerns of patients with Leukemia need to be addressed properly by the healthcare team. Therefore, the present research explores Walela Nehanda's Bless the Blood as a profound illness narrative on leukaemia to critically examine the autopathography that interrogates dominant medical discourses, foregrounding the intersections of race, gender, and systemic oppression within the knowledge system of critical health humanities. Thus, to elucidate the significance of intersectional analysis in medical humanities by analysing how Nehanda’s narrative interlaces personal illness with broader socio-political structures, thereby advancing a nuanced understanding of the lived realities and representational complexities of illness.
Methods: Thematic and narrative analysis of the selected cultural artefacts. A phenomenological study of autopathography will be done with the study of intersectionality initiated by Kimberle Crenshaw.
Conclusion:This paper explores Walela Nehanda's Bless the Blood as a profound illness narrative, situating it within the framework of critical medical humanities. By examining the text through the lens of intersectionality, this study dissects how Nehanda's narrative intertwines personal illness with broader socio-political issues, particularly those related to race, gender, and class. Further the paper argues that Bless the Blood transcends the conventional boundaries of illness narratives by embedding the protagonist's experiences of illness within the systemic injustices faced by marginalised communities. Thus this study concludes that Bless the Blood is a pivotal text for understanding the confluence of personal and collective suffering, underscoring the imperative of integrating intersectional analysis into medical humanities to fully comprehend the multifaceted nature of illness experiences and their representation.
Keywords: critical medical humanities, illness narrative, cancer narrative, intersectionality
BIOGRAPHIES
B. Gouri is currently pursuing her PhD from VIT, Vellore under the guidance Dr. Sunitha V., Dept. of English, VIT Vellore. Gouri’s area of research is Critical Medical Humanities and she is specialising in her thesis about illness narrative, particularly cancer narratives. Her other areas of interest include media and gender studies. She is a full time research scholar exploring autobiographies with latest exploration of various autopathographics. She started off her career by reading fiction and later understood that the true essence of understanding life is through memoirs because it always lets us seep into others life. In case of illness narratives, it lets us capture the multitudes of grieving, survival and resurrection. For her PhD thesis she is working on breast cancer narratives through life writing.
Dr Sunitha V. holds the position of Associate Professor Grade 2 and research guide in Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore at the Department of English under School of Social Sciences and Languages.