City Research Online

Abstract

Persistently alive but unaware, vegetative state patients are stuck in the transition between life and death – that is, in a liminal hotspot. This condition raises complex ethical and legal dilemmas concerning end‐of‐life action. Drawing on social representations (SRs) and the liminality framework, our research investigated how the vegetative state was constructed within the Italian parliamentary debates discussing end‐of‐life bills (2009–2017). We aimed to understand (1) how political groups represented the vegetative state, (2) how they legitimised different end‐of‐life bills and (3) came to terms with the issue of liminal hotspots. By dialogically analysing three debates (No. of interventions = 98), we identified six themes and discursive aims allowing parliamentarians to differently represent the vegetative state and support different courses of action. In turn, we identified new features of the psycho‐social processes generating SRs: the dialogical tensions between anchoring and de‐anchoring. Results corroborated the idea that de‐paradoxifying liminality relies on group sense‐making and, thus, different political leanings differently addressed the liminality of the vegetative state. We also reveal a novel feature of dealing with liminal hotspots informing the psycho‐social literature that applies when a decision needs to be taken, such as in the case of crafting a law: moving from the paradox.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Authors. British Journal of Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Publisher Keywords:	discourse-oriented thematic analysis, liminal hotspots, parliamentary debates, social representations, vegetative state
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BJ Ethics K Law > K Law (General) R Medicine > R Medicine (General)
Departments:	School of Health & Medical Sciences School of Health & Medical Sciences > Department of Psychology & Neuroscience
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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