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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until November 02, 2026

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Sleeping Everywhere: Narrating How People with Narcolepsy Navigate Everyday Life

Eugene, Nicole C.
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6451-6792
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1500648248226989

Abstract Details

2017, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Communication Studies (Communication).
Research on narcolepsy tends to highlight negative features of the condition while not including the perspectives of people with narcolepsy. This dissertation sought to represent narcolepsy in a way that put the subjective experience of narcolepsy in conversation with the medical language about narcolepsy while collecting narratives of how people with narcolepsy navigate everyday life. A hidden disability like narcolepsy exists within contexts that may obscure apparent differences between individuals. An in situ approach to researching hidden disabilities considers the way physical and discursive contexts shape what is knowable about another person’s capacities. Narcolepsy causes people who have it to have difficulty in matching the spatiotemporal rhythms of society. Using the feminist disability studies concept of misfit and performance studies concepts about uncovering hidden meanings and evocative writing I designed a research project that included in-depth interviews with people who have narcolepsy, participant observation with a local narcolepsy support group and autoethnographic writing. Case study interviews were analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. The analysis portion of the dissertation includes one autoethnography on the intertwined relationships between identity, place and sleep and four chapters that highlight four places where people with narcolepsy wrestle with narcolepsy and the challenges of managing it. The narratives about narcolepsy highlight how meanings of narcolepsy are socially constructed through communicative interactions around symptoms and treatment. The dissertation concludes by reflecting on how sleep medicine can play a larger role in the social construction of narcolepsy in everyday life by revising some of the language used in medical discourse and by improving patient and family education.
William Rawlins (Advisor)
Lynn Harter (Committee Member)
Risa Whitson (Committee Member)
J. W. Smith (Committee Member)
302 p.
Communication; Cultural Anthropology; Families and Family Life; Health; Neurology; Social Research
Narcolepsy; Autoethnography; Hidden Disability; Social Constructionism, Interviews, Place, Neurodiversity

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Eugene, N. C. (2017). Sleeping Everywhere: Narrating How People with Narcolepsy Navigate Everyday Life [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1500648248226989

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Eugene, Nicole. Sleeping Everywhere: Narrating How People with Narcolepsy Navigate Everyday Life . 2017. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1500648248226989.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Eugene, Nicole. "Sleeping Everywhere: Narrating How People with Narcolepsy Navigate Everyday Life ." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1500648248226989

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ohiou1500648248226989
© 2017, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.