Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is an acute physical injury of the brain suffered by millions of Americans every year. Such injuries are largely invisible, poorly understood, and almost always lead to extensive and life-long consequences for survivors, their caregivers, families, friends, and wider communities. In the research supported by this award, University of Arizona doctoral student Austin W. Duncan, under the supervision of Dr. Eric Plemons and Dr. Susan J Shaw, will investigate the shifting meaning and sociocultural ramifications of the injury in the contemporary United States. The goal is to understand how the meaning is created and how it changes and is changed by bodily experiences and social interactions of individual survivors with those around them, including governmental and non-governmental (NGO) policymakers. The researcher will trace how TBI becomes a chronic condition at three distinct but inter-related levels: 1) individual TBI survivors; 2) caregivers, families, friends, and associates; and 3) governmental and non-governmental policies and programs. Data will be collected through intensive fieldwork in Seattle, Washington. The researcher will employ a mixed methods approach, including: participant-observation with community, organizations, and TBI support groups; open-ended stakeholder interviews; focus groups; case studies with individual survivors and those closest to them; and semi-structured interviews with state and civil society staff and policymakers. Taken together, these data sources will allow the researcher to access and assess the post-treatment and rehabilitation consequences of the injury across individual, social, and political realms. Finally, by investigating a concrete example of the social effects of physical brain damage, findings from the research will contribute to new theoretical understanding of the role that the brain plays in the functioning of the physical, social, and political bodies.