Spaces of Care and Graphic Medicine

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Sathyaraj Venkatesan1 & Livine Ancy A2

1Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Trichy. Corresponding Author. Email: sathyaiitk@gmail.com

2Research Scholar, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Trichy. Email: livine2212@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.29

 Abstract

While there are several studies that focus on care settings in relation to verbal narratives, only a few studies have paid attention to how comics in general, and graphic medicine in particular, engage critical care environments and settings. Drawing strengths from the underground and alternative comics and capitalizing on health humanities, graphic medicine, a recent development in the comics genre, concentrates on the issues related to health, illness, and care. Coined by Ian Williams in 2007, graphic medicine refers to the intersection of comics and concerns of healthcare. Graphic medicine has always engaged informal, formal, and biomedical caregiving settings. Against this backdrop, the present article, drawing on relevant theoretical debates on spatial studies and care, examines Stan Mack’s Janet& Me (2004), Joyce Farmer’s Special Exits (2014), and Sarah Leavitt’s Tangles (2012). In so doing, the article seeks to delineate care facilities (family, hospitals, among others) and their impact on patients.

Keywords: graphic Medicine, informal care, hospital Care, institutional care, spaces of care.