Remembering One’s Stay in Hospital: A Study in Photography, Recovery and Forgetting

Abstract

This article addresses the question of how people remember their time as a hospital in-patient, and what place this remembering has in the work of recovery. It is based upon a study in which patients took photographs during their time on a hospital ward, using them later on as the basis for an interview in their homes. Using one woman’s data we discuss how the photo-based interviews made legible the images of her hospital experience and the part these images played in the respondent’s account of her recovery. The use of photographs is particularly useful in showing how remembering involves an ongoing transfer between different kinds of representation, including the narrative exploration of the movement of objects between hospital and home.