HEALTH AND IDENTITY IN BETWEEN THE PRIVATE AND THE INSTITUTIONAL. THE CASE OF CATHERINE, THE PRINCESS OF WALES
HEALTH AND IDENTITY IN BETWEEN THE PRIVATE AND THE INSTITUTIONAL. THE CASE OF CATHERINE, THE PRINCESS OF WALES

Summary/Abstract: The singular objective of the present study is the examination of the relationship between private identity and institutional identity, labelled as ‘body natural’ & ‘body politic’ (Ernst Kantorowicz), with regard to Catherine Middleton’s oncologic experience in the period January 2024 - January 2025, as publicly announced by herself or by the Palace. With regard to the tense, dynamic and complex structural duality ‘private/institutional’, the subject becomes more visible than usual because illness makes this duality more conflicting: an ailing body is by definition natural and private, but it is the political/institutional body that has to ‘communicate’ it, to make it public. The focus is on seven press releases that are to be interpreted as an identity management act, attempting to see which of the two identities is speaking, which is visible, which is dominant, which is protected by being back staged, which is used to benefit the other.

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