Bodies that are blemished, by accidents, diseases or treatments, may have lost their biological and/or functional intactness. Nevertheless they may be experienced and considered as “whole”. This project seeks to explore the experience of bodily wholeness in people with disfiguring breast, head and neck cancer. It will argue that the way in which people experience their own body serves as the basis for making (treatment related) choices, and thus entails a normative meaning. To this purpose, it starts from the hypothesis that bodily integrity should be explained in terms of the capacity of identifying with one’s body, i.e. the capacity of being the body one has. Physical restoration of someone’s blemished body does not necessarily result in the restoration of this person’s experience of bodily integrity, e.g. a breast reconstruction restores physical intactness, but identification with the new breast cannot be taken for granted. This project seeks to enrich the current discourse and practice of medical ethics by bringing forth that decision’s about physical interventions should not be based upon cognitive deliberations only. The process of decision making should also include an articulation and evaluation of the way a patient relates to her/his body. It is exactly this project’s aim to provide insights in how cancer patients and survivors express their experience of (loss of) bodily wholeness. Such an empirically sound vocabulary of body experiences can subsequently be used by medical professionals to support patients in making good decisions.

This philosophical-anthropological research involves a twofold approach: (1) reflection on various theoretical, medical and cultural sources (2) collection and analysis of data from two Dutch oncology centers (interviews and focus groups). Researches in this project are therefore supposed to have excellent theoretical and philosophical skills, a profound interest in health care practices and, preferably, some experience in empirical research.

Description of the 2 PhD projects:

PhD project I: Ideal Shapes – Shaping Ideality
This project will explore the way in which cultural body ideals influence breast cancer patients’ experience of disfigurement. It will focus on the (representation of the) female breast, which has appealed to human imagination ever since and will investigate which role images and discourses play in breast cancer patients’ and survivors’ choices. It will also investigate whether alternative cultural representations, such as humoristic cancer comics, radical feminist discourse that disputes cosmetic reconstruction, or pictures that emphasize a certain untouched beauty in blemished bodies, may affect the experience of these women otherwise. The researcher will apply an empirical-philosophical approach, combining theoretical reflection with data collection and analysis.

Requirements PhD project 1.
-Master in Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Medical Anthropology, Medical Humanities or another relevant field.
-Interest in and feeling for qualitative empirical research.
-Excellent mastery of English in speech and in writing; sufficient mastery of Dutch (in order to conduct interviews with Dutch people)
-Excellent analytical skills, and commitment to conducting innovative research at the intersection of humanities, social sciences and health care practices.

PhD project II Facing One’s Loss of Face

This project will explore the conditions on which people with disfiguring head and neck cancer cope with their, sometimes irreparable, damaged appearance; whether they find a way to re-identify with their own mirror image; whether they succeed in incorporating (functional or cosmetic) prostheses (e.g. larynx stoma, artificial ear, nose or eye) into their own “body image” and “body scheme”. The researcher will especially focus on the difference between the perspectives involved (e.g. a medical perspective such as “oncologic safety above all” versus a patient’s perspective such as “survival but not at the expense of the quality of life”), and will examine whether the gathering and articulation of these perspectives adds to a better understanding of patients’ experience of bodily integrity, thus contributing to good clinical practice. The researcher will apply an empirical-philosophical approach, combining theoretical reflection with data collection and analysis.

Requirements PhD project 2.
-Master in Philosophy, Ethics, Health Care Sciences, Medical Psychology or another relevant field.
-Interest in and feeling for qualitative empirical research.
-Excellent mastery of English in speech and in writing; sufficient mastery of Dutch (in order to conduct interviews with Dutch people)
-Excellent analytical skills, and commitment to conducting innovative research at the intersection of humanities, social sciences and health care practices.

Conditions of Employment

The PhD candidates will be offered a fixed-term employment contract (4 years). The gross monthly salary, for an employee on a full time basis, is € 2.042 during the first year and increases to € 2.612 over a four year period. The terms of employment are in accordance with the Dutch Collective Labour Agreement for Research Institutes (“CAO-onderzoeksinstellingen”).

Department
The candidates will be member of the department of Health, Ethics, and Society, in the research school CAPHRI. The department’s research focuses on the societal and normative dimensions of health care and public health. The interaction between scientific knowledge and technological innovation on the one hand and societal trends on the other is studied as well as the implications of these interactions for the distribution of responsibilities and rights between professionals, citizens and patients, society and politics. The candidates will be participating in some of the department’s teaching tasks in the Faculty of Health, Medince and Life Sciences. They will be offered a professional context for their research and education by CAPHRI’s center of Excellence. Additionally, they will be enrolled in the graduate program of the Netherlands Graduate Research School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture (WTMC).

Application:
Applications for one of the positions should consist of:
-An application letter
-Curriculum vitae

Please send your application to: pzfdgvacatures-at-facburfdg.unimaas.nl,
Please mention the number(s) and title(s) of the PhD project(s) you apply for.

For more information please contact: Dr. Jenny Slatman (jenny.slatman-at-maastrichtuniversity.nl) (project leader).

Scholarship Application Deadline: February 20, 2011

Further Scholarship Information and Application