Embodying occupational overuse syndrome

This article explores the ways in which embodiedness has become problematic for New Zealand sufferers of occupational overuse syndrome (OOS). While successful rehabilitation could lead back to employment, this was based on the biographical continuity of a bodily hexus that ignored persistent pain. The reality of OOS involved a liminal fragility associated with social isolation, loss of identities, pain and functional disability that was incorporated into re-negotiated identities and biographies with the result that respondents became exquisitely self-absorbed, exercising constant bodily surveillance and discipline in order to manage their symptoms.