In this project I was principal grant applicant, researcher and project leader (2010-2016)
In 2010 I was a awarded a VIDI grant by the Dutch research council (NWO), for a a 5 years-research project, Bodily Integrity in Blemished Bodies. This project ran from 2011 until 2016. I have conducted this project with 2 PhD researchers:
Gili Yaron – PhD thesis: Doing facial difference: The lived experiences of individuals with facial limb absence. Open access
Marjolein de Boer – PhD thesis: Extended Bodies: An empirical-philosophical study
to women’s bodily experiences in breast cancer. Open access
Project description
In our utterly image-conscious and medicalized society, there are a host of bodies that do not meet the ideal of bodily intactness and perfection. This project seeks to gain an understanding of bodily integrity in our society by exploring the experience of bodily wholeness. It will argue that the way in which people experience their own bodies is not just a psychological fact, but that this experience also serves as the basis for making choices, and thus entails a normative meaning. To set out this phenomenological ethics of the body, this project will focus on a specific culturally and socially urgent case of “deviant” embodiment: people with disfiguring breast, head and neck cancer. Given that it concentrates on the double-sidedness of bodily experience – “having” and “being” one’s body – the project will pursue a theory of embodiment that complements both social constructivist analyses and habitual ethical conceptions of integrity, and thereby seeks to explain bodily integrity in terms of the capacity of identifying with one’s body. To this purpose this project involves a twofold approach: (1) collection and analysis of data from the field; (2) interpretation of sources which both constitute and represent embodied experience: subjective and shared stories, theoretical and medical sources, and other cultural expressions. Applying a phenomenological-narrative approach, it will assess the relation between patients’ embodied self-experience and the choices that are offered and made. The project will provide empirical, theoretical and practical insights in the phenomenon of contextualized embodied self-experience, and will result in the articulation of how cancer patients and survivors experience their bodies. Finally, this empirically sound vocabulary of body experiences will be applied to evaluate and adjust existing decision aids, to pave the way for a new treatment decision model, and to advance a theory of non-ideal embodiment in our society.
Main output:
Slatman, J. (2011). The meaning of body experience valuation in oncology. Health Care Analysis, Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 295-311
Slatman, J. (2012). Phenomenology of Bodily Integrity in Disfiguring Breast Cancer, Hypatia, 27 (2): 281-300.
Slatman, J. (2012). Aandacht voor lichaamservaring binnen de oncologie. Psychosociale Oncologie. Vol. 20, nr. 3, p. 30-31
Moraal, M., Slatman, J., Pieters, A., Mert, A. and Widdershoven, G. (2013). A virtual rehabilitation program after amputation: A phenomenological exploration. Disability and Rehabilitation. Vol. 8, No. 6: 511-515
Slatman, J. (2013). Lichamelijkheid in medische praktijken. Verschillende betekenissen van ‘het lichaam’. In M. Schermer, M. Boenink & G. Meynen (Eds). Komt een filosoof bij de dokter. Amsterdam: Boom: 49- 62
De Boer, M.L. & Slatman, J. (2014). Blogging and breast cancer: Narrating one’s life, body and self on the Internet. Women’s Studies International Forum. 44: 17-25
Slatman, J. (2014). Multiple dimensions of embodiment in medical practices. Medicine, Healthcare and Philosophy. 17(4), p. 549-557
Slatman, J. & G. Yaron (2014). Towards A Phenomenology of Disfigurement. In K. Zeiller and L. Käll, Feminist Phenomenology and Medicine, Albany: SUNY Press: 223-240
Slatman, J. (2014) Ethiek belichaamd door de chirurg. Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Heelkunde. Vol. 23, Nr. 6, p. 50
Leunissen, T., De Boer, M.L. Van der Hulst, R.W.J. & Slatman, J. (2015) Exploring new dimensions in embodiment after implant based and autologous breast reconstruction. Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery –JPRAS., 7, 32-41
Slatman, J. Halsema, A. & A. Meershoek (2015). Omgaan met de gevolgen van een borstoperatie. Oncologica. Tijdschrift voor oncologieverpleegkundigen en verpleegkundig specialisten oncologie. Vol. 32, Nr. 3, 30-33
De Boer, M.L. Van der Hulst, R.W.J. & Slatman, J. (2015). The surprise of a breast reconstruction: A longitudinal phenomenological study to women’s expectations about reconstructive surgery. Human Studies. 38 (3): 409-430
Slatman, J., Halsema, A. & Meershoek, A. (2015). Responding to scars after breast surgery. Qualitative Health Research. 26 (12) 1614-1626
Slatman, J. (2015) Zelf beschikken, samen beslissen over het ‘eigen’ lichaam. In Th. Wobbes & M. van den Muijsenbergh (red.) Baas over eigen lichaam? Dilemma’s rond zelfbeschikking en gezondheid. Valkhof Pers. pp. 59-74
Slatman, J. (2016) Is it possible to ‘incorporate’ a scar? Revisiting a basic concept in phenomenology. Human Studies. 39(3), pp 347–363
Slatman, J. (2016). Een andere kijk op lichamelijke heelheid. TGE Tijdschrift voor Gezondheidszorg en Ethiek, Vol. 26 (2), 52
Yaron, G., Meershoek, A., Widdershoven, G., Van den Brekel, M. & Slatman, J. (2017). Facing a disruptive face: Embodiment in the everyday experiences of facially “disfigured” individuals. Human Studies. Volume 40, Issue 2, pp 285–307
Yaron, G., Widdershoven, G., & Slatman, J. (2017). Recovering a disfigured face: Cosmesis in the everyday use of facial prostheses. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology. 21:1 (2017): 1–23
Halsema, A. & Slatman, J. (2017). The second-person perspective in narrative phenomenology. In. H. Fielding & D. Olkowski (eds.). Feminist Phenomenology Futures. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p. 243-256
Slatman, J. (2017). Filosoferen over littekens: Pleidooi voor een materialistische wending in de fenomenologie. ANTW. Vol 109(1): 25-43
Cornelissen, A.J.M., Tuinder, S.M.H., Heuts, E.M., Van der Hulst, R.W.J. & Slatman, J. (2018). What Does A Breast Feel Like? A Qualitative Study Among Healthy Women. BMC Women’s Health, 18:82: doi.org/10.1186/s12905-018-0577-1
Yaron, G., Meershoek, A. Widdershoven, G. & Slatman, J. (2018). Recognizing Difference: In/visibility in the Everyday Lives of Individuals with Facial Limb Absence. Disability and Society, 33:5, 743-762
De Boer, M.L. & Slatman, J. (2018). The Mediated Breast: Technology, Agency, and Breast Cancer. Human Studies. 41:275–292
De Boer, M.L., Slatman, J. & Zeiler, K. (2018). Sharing lives, sharing bodies. Partners negotiating breast cancer experiences. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-018-9866-6
De Boer, M.L. & Slatman, J. (2018). Voorbij het vertoog: Het existentiële belang van pluriforme borstkankerverhalen, TGE Tijdschrift voor Gezondheidszorg en Ethiek, 28(2): 38-44
Slatman, J. & Flipse A. (2018). Lichaamsbeelden in de gezondheidszorg. In: Pieterse, T. & Widdershoven, G. (red.). Basisboek Filosofie en Geschiedenis van de Gezondheidszorg. Amsterdam: Boom: 199-218