Ill-being and the Politics of Compulsory Positivity in Chronic Illness

Kelly Moes

Ill-being and the Politics of Compulsory Positivity in Chronic Illness

Conference paper

Kelly Moes
TASA 2026: Resistance and Revolution, The Australian Sociological Association, University of Sunshine Coast, 2026 Nov

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APA Click to copy
Moes, K. (2026). Ill-being and the Politics of Compulsory Positivity in Chronic Illness. University of Sunshine Coast: TASA 2026: Resistance and Revolution.

Chicago/Turabian Click to copy
Moes, Kelly. “Ill-Being and the Politics of Compulsory Positivity in Chronic Illness.” University of Sunshine Coast: TASA 2026: Resistance and Revolution, 2026.

MLA Click to copy
Moes, Kelly. Ill-Being and the Politics of Compulsory Positivity in Chronic Illness. TASA 2026: Resistance and Revolution, 2026.

BibTeX Click to copy

@inproceedings{kelly2026a,
  title = {Ill-being and the Politics of Compulsory Positivity in Chronic Illness},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  address = {University of Sunshine Coast},
  organization = {The Australian Sociological Association},
  publisher = {TASA 2026: Resistance and Revolution},
  author = {Moes, Kelly},
  month_numeric = {11}
}

Abstract:
For many people living with chronic illness-disability, the refusal to perform positivity may be one of the more persistent, if quieter, forms of everyday resistance.

Building on Smilges (2023) notion of crip negativity and Sheppard’s (2025) crip killjoy, I introduce ill-being as a critical concept to position negative sentiment in chronic illness as a structurally situated response to medical misrecognition, epistemic invalidation, and the social demand that chronically ill and disabled people orient toward resilience. This normative demand for compulsory positivity appears to function as a form of ableism that converts disability and structural harm into individual responsibility and may be reproduced even within disability pride and the affirmation model when affirmation is expected to take the form of positivity.

Drawing on qualitative research with 563 people living with Intracranial Hypertension, participants consistently described life with the condition as 'nightmarish' and 'a living hell'. I contend this necessarily oppositional framing offers counternarratives that trouble both the dominant medicalised framing of chronic illness and the broader positivity/wellbeing societal trope. More closely resembling Frank's (1995) chaos narrative than the quest or warrior frameworks typically imposed on chronic illness, these expressions of ill-being position negative expression within crip knowledge production and disability justice.

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