Article Embodying occupational overuse syndrome Chrystal Jaye and Ruth Fitzgerald University of Otago, New Zealand Abstract This article explores the ways in which embodiedness has become problematic for New Zealand sufferers of occupational overuse syndrome (OOS). While successful rehabilitation could lead back to employment, this was based on the biographical continuity of a bodily hexus that ignored persistent pain. The reality of OOS involved a liminal fragility associated with social isolation, loss of identities, pain and functional disability that was incorporated into re-negotiated identities and biographies with the result that respondents became exquisitely self-absorbed, exercising constant bodily surveillance and discipline in order to manage their symptoms. Keywords chronic illness and disability, experiencing illness and narratives, narrative analysis Occupational overuse syndrome (OOS) enjoyed a brief period of media and medical notoriety that peaked between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s in Australia and New Zealand. Several reasons have been put forward to explain why interest in OOS waned during the late 1990s; these include increasing medical scepticism; improvements in workplace ergonomics; improvements in workplace relationships; and limiting access to compensation (Hall and Morrow, 1988; McEachen, 2005). The apparent resolution of OOS as a workplace problem may also explain the relative dearth of sociological and anthropological attention to the personal and social consequences of OOS. However, despite decreasing epidemiological incidence, injury compensation data suggest that many New Zealand workers are still affected by chronic OOS injuries that prevent their return to full participation in the workforce. Corresponding author: Chrystal Jaye, Department of General Practice, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, PO Box 913, Dunedin, New Zealand. Email: chrystal.jaye@otago.ac.nz Health 15(4) 385–400 © The Author(s) 2010 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1363459310376298 hea.sagepub.com