Creating Care for People Who Self-Harm through Transformation of Aesthetic Objects

The role of fiction in enabling care for people who self-harm is primarily framed as a relation of protection through absence or avoidance. It is frequently suggested that fiction should avoid depicting self-harm, lest it encourage readers to begin self-harming, framing those who self-harm as passive and in need of protection. This paper will demonstrate that when the perspectives of people who self-harm are centred in the analysis of texts and their effects, the practice of reading and viewing fiction emerges as a more active, creative, and relational experience, which brings self-harm close rather than holding it at a distance. Indeed, such active engagement through material practices like zine-making, event attendance, and repeated viewing of a singular scene is understood as that which makes care possible. Through a novel interdisciplinary approach, this brings together sociological and literary methods to explore the dynamic relation between a text and its effects. Drawing on both qualitative interviews with people with experience of self-harm and close readings of creative texts including the Showtime TV series The L Word (2004-2009) and Andrea Gibson's poem 'I Sing The Body Electric, Especially When My Power's Out' (2011), the paper traces the complex relation between texts and the care they make possible. Thus, I extend existing theorisations of care as intimate and relational to the context of self-harm. Specifically, I outline the way in which care is not predetermined, singular, and universal, and explore the ways that a relation of care can be invited by aesthetic qualities.