The Shame and Medicine Project and the Centre for Medical History are thrilled to welcome to the University of Exeter, Dr Mara Pieri, University of Coimbra, to give the online Shame and Medical History seminar:
‘Shame, pride, and all the invisible things: the emotions regulating access to healthcare’
15th May 2025 at 14.00 BST.
This seminar is part of the Shame and Medical History Seminar series which examines shame and stigma in the context of medical history.
TITLE:
'Shame, pride, and all the invisible things: the emotions regulating access to healthcare'
ABSTRACT:
This paper explores the centrality of emotions in the experience of accessing healthcare for LGBTQ+ people. Based on qualitative interviews conducted with LGBTQ+ people in Portugal for the project “DIVERS – Diversity and Inclusion in Healthcare”, the paper discusses how access to healthcare is mediated by emotional responses and how such emotions influence the quality of the relationships between LGBTQ+ patients and healthcare providers. Literature on access to healthcare often points out that LGBTQ+ people tend to show scarce compliance to screening programs and low access to non-urgent healthcare treatments (Seelman et al. 2017; Zeeman et al. 2014). Data collected during the emphasize the importance of considering emotions as drivers of the decisions that regulate how and to what extent LGBTQ+ access healthcare services. Preventive fear of discrimination and shame, together with the effects of cumulative stigma, are prominent elements often cited. However, the analysis also shows how feelings of pride and affirmation are crucial, for example in the choice of coming out to healthcare providers. The experiences collected thus indicate the possibility to integrate politics of emotion within the larger frame of socio-economic inequalities and debate the potential of such an approach.
BIO:
Mara Pieri is an associate researcher at the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra. She has a background in Sociology and holds a PhD in “Human Rights in Contemporary Societies”. In 2023, she published “LGBT+ people with Chronic Illness: Chroniqueers in Southern Europe” (Palgrave). She is currently conducting research on access to healthcare services for the LGBTQ+ population in Portugal with the project “DIVERS – Diversity and Inclusion in Health Access”(2022-2028). She combines an interest in disability studies with queer/crip studies, through an intersectional approach and a specific focus on chronic illnesses. Her recent research interests include: medicalization; chronic illness and invisible disability; visibility; accessibility; sexualities in Southern Europe; LGBTQ+ health.
