#strokesurvivor on Instagram: Conjunctive experiences of adapting to disability
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/mk.v39i74.132468Keywords:
health, illness, instagram, self-help, InstagramAbstract
This study investigates practices of sharing the experience of stroke on Instagram through use of the hashtag #strokesurvivor. The hashtag brings together people from different cultural backgrounds and professions and those who experience different kinds of healthcare and varying degrees of physical or cognitive impairment. Through a digital ethnography of #strokesurvivor, the conjunctive experiences and communicative practices of the community are reconstructed. Instagram enables specific forms of sociality and sharing, like long-term visual storytelling and influencer dynamics. Adapting to a transformed body and identity is perceived and practiced as a conjunctive experience and a struggle. A strong orientation towards a “normal life” is a recurring theme. Mourning and perseverance are put forward as two modes of coping with and adapting to a transforming body and self.
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