Thesis Chapters by Anna Frost, PhD
This unprecedented study laid the groundwork for a transdisciplinary way of thinking about and kn... more This unprecedented study laid the groundwork for a transdisciplinary way of thinking about and knowing lyme disease and even other chronic illnesses. Thus far, modern-day lyme disease discourse, which is currently drowning in ‘war’ rhetoric, has been largely limited to knowledge production. Primarily concerned with outcomes, knowledge production essentially asks, How is lyme? As a result, the propagated evidence claims on all sides of the lyme issue have unduly absented the experience of the body. Drawing on a six-month grounded theory, critical ethnomedicine study of five lyme disease sufferers in Western Oregon and Western Washington, I argued that the lyme body is the crux of the reality of lyme disease; as such, the embodiment of lyme shapes knowing the disease. By seeking the answer to the question, What is lyme?, the lyme body eschews knowledge production to rethink the disease altogether. It does so precisely because traditional contradictions, such as knowledge/being and mind/body, are capable of living and wandering in two entangled worlds. However, in order to begin to answer the question about what lyme is, it was critical for this study to first ask, What constitutes the lyme body? Accordingly, three dominant themes emerged: time, sacrificial bonds, and what I call the “philosophy of the weird.” As such, the lyme body is a weird body borne of chaos that redistributes and regenerates power. Modeling a “movement of thinking,” the lyme body informs, influences, and transforms the possibilities of all that could be known about the disease.
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Papers by Anna Frost, PhD
This unprecedented study laid the groundwork for a transdisciplinary way of thinking about and kn... more This unprecedented study laid the groundwork for a transdisciplinary way of thinking about and knowing lyme disease and even other chronic illnesses. Thus far, modern-day lyme disease discourse, which is currently drowning in ‘war’ rhetoric, has been largely limited to knowledge production. Primarily concerned with outcomes, knowledge production essentially asks, How is lyme? As a result, the propagated evidence claims on all sides of the lyme issue have unduly absented the experience of the body. Drawing on a six-month grounded theory, critical ethnomedicine study of five lyme disease sufferers in Western Oregon and Western Washington, I argued that the lyme body is the crux of the reality of lyme disease; as such, the embodiment of lyme shapes knowing the disease. By seeking the answer to the question, What is lyme?, the lyme body eschews knowledge production to rethink the disease altogether. It does so precisely because traditional contradictions, such as knowledge/being and mind/body, are capable of living and wandering in two entangled worlds. However, in order to begin to answer the question about what lyme is, it was critical for this study to first ask, What constitutes the lyme body? Accordingly, three dominant themes emerged: time, sacrificial bonds, and what I call the “philosophy of the weird.” As such, the lyme body is a weird body borne of chaos that redistributes and regenerates power. Modeling a “movement of thinking,” the lyme body informs, influences, and transforms the possibilities of all that could be known about the disease.
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Integral Leadership Review, Jul 2020
When COVID-19 and the subsequent quarantines broke out in the United States beginning in March 20... more When COVID-19 and the subsequent quarantines broke out in the United States beginning in March 2020, the news was unsettling but not incredible. Being that I have completed years of advocacy and research for another zoonotic disease—lyme disease—it was clear to me that lyme patients have insight and tools that may inform people adjusting to this “new normal” of living in isolation and contending with a disease that may affect them, loved ones, or people in their communities. In this paper, I draw on the three major themes that emerged from a six-month grounded theory, ethnographic study I conducted of five lyme patients in 2015. Additionally, I am a lyme patient in remission with three unique—but not uncommon—experiences of isolation in my life, so I begin the paper with these experiences to help us get into the experience of lyme disease and isolation.
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Thesis Chapters by Anna Frost, PhD
Papers by Anna Frost, PhD