Resistance to dominant narratives and the construction of identity legitimacy: counterstories of Chinese migrant workers with pneumoconiosis

This study is focused on the pneumoconiosis workers’ illness narratives in Bashan Town in Chongqing. In-depth interviews were used to gather their illness narratives, and a “counterstory” framework was adopted for the critical analysis of the resistance of these texts to the dominant discourse. The results showed that these pneumoconiosis counterstories to be legitimacy narratives that sought four types of legitimacy: medical, suffering, moral, and public. Three opposing identity relations were explored in these narratives: qualified vs unrecognized pneumoconiosis patients, bearers of great suffering vs complainers without cause and neglected within the pneumoconiosis group vs Invisible pneumoconiosis. These identity relations strengthened the pneumoconiosis workers’ confrontation with the illegitimacy of the main social narrative, and they were used in the attempt to construct a legitimized self-identity. The study also identified three narrative strategies used to resist the oppressive dominant narrative, they are revelation, refusal and contestation. Finally, the author proposed that these counterstories consisted a weapon for the weak to voice their legitimacy concerns and offered recommendations for the prevention and treatment of pneumoconiosis.