Date of Award

2024-05-01

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Interdisciplinary Health Sciences

Advisor(s)

Jeffrey Eggleston

Abstract

This research represents a highly personalized account of the complexities, interpretations, and reflections of the journey of a doctoral student navigating the challenges of health through access on a U.S.-Mexico border. Using myself as the subject and the researcher in the social context of schooling provided the impetus for this self-study. Through an insider’s vantage point, I have chronicled and traced the experiences of my own identities’ transitions and multilayered intersectionality using the qualitative methodology of autoethnography. This genre of qualitative research brings the reader closer to the subculture studied through the author’s experiences.

While every story has its unique layers of complexities, the introspection, and evaluation provided by the methodology of autoethnography greatly facilitates an understanding of the processes of concepts constructions through a lens of the theory of resilience. The distinctive impact this dissertation makes on interdisciplinary health sciences is the aim to incorporate autoethnographic research into a popular narrative with cultural viewpoints of the lived understanding as praxis for public health. I am for this to be a new way of approaching community-engaged research. I contend that legitimizing social and individual elements of the lived experience is a way to comprehend the culture and the politics of dealing with hardships such as illness, violence, and residual effects of ongoing complex-trauma. The experiences I have encountered, the problems I have faced, and the interpretations derived from them will strengthen my own practices as a social justice activist and provide insight into the ever-changing positioning of nationality, gender, race, and social class perspectives within distinct geographical and political socio-contexts.

The themes that I address in this introspective journey revolve around the power of identity, utilization, and access. Concepts such as social class status, gender, and disability/different abilities, in context, are mentioned through theories of resilience, with a greater focus on the redefining and role of education in fighting mental health and social class stigma, resisting “giving in,” and “giving up,” and forging a new path to survive and thrive in adversity. This qualitative autoethnographic study was the process by which I, a woman struggling with financial and health concerns, was able to evocatively and therapeutically write about the traumatic events I experienced. It was also the method by which I decided to disclose how I moved from being an at-risk Special Education student and high-school dropout to refusing to settle and concurrently strengthened my resilience. This study demonstrated the basic tenets of autoethnography and how, by overcoming mental health concerns, thriving while facing financial struggles and housing insecurity, and refusing to abandon seeking a correct medical diagnosis, I was able to embrace the spirit of forgiveness and increase my resilience. Insights into the discourse of a dysfunctional family are shared, allowing me to offer a message of hope and shatter stereotypes. The study concludes that autoethnography, as a process, permits tapping into new-found autonomy. Autoethnographically, this study represents my life journey, but it can represent the life of many readers who have lived in the United States in disadvantaged conditions and/or have encountered physical, emotional, verbal, and sexual abuse. This study legitimized and validated my story as a survivor. Consequently, the plot of the story focuses on the long-term effect of trauma, how I coped, and how I am now, thriving through it all. Focusing on the acts and conditions while incorporating dialogue permitted me to involve the reader more closely in the story.

I leaned on my doctoral studies to expand my understanding of the abuse and financial disadvantages I experienced (Holt, 2003). I found that resilience was central to my life story. Embracing resiliency empowered me to discover new ways of thinking about my life experiences, which included using an interdisciplinary approach or a positive model that offered “alternatives to the deficits-based explanatory models of environmental determinants of health that have dominated the literature” to accept the raw and cruel encounters I was exposed to and turn my thoughts into a healthier way of thinking (McWhirter, L., Ritchie, C., Stone, J., & Carson, A. (2020). Tugade and Fredrickson (2004, p. 320) would say that I obtained a psychological resilience to effectively cope and adapt, even though I faced “loss, hardship, or adversity.” Ultimately, I discovered that resilience is a “state, a condition and a practice” (Knight, 2007, p. 544).

Keywords: Theory of resilience; Theory of identity; Gender; Social Class; Post-Traumatic Growth; Health Care Access; Resources; Reactive Attachment Disorder; Health Equity; Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE); Mental Distress; Resilience; Stressful life events; Trauma & Healing; Complex Diagnosis; Recovery.

Language

en

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Size

276 p.

File Format

application/pdf

Rights Holder

Josette Pelatan

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