Chronic illness and the ideology of the individual : towards a critique of the concept of agency

The author analyses how the concept of agency may enhance some forms of social normativity and encourage a type of individual among children and adults. The article questions these characteristics, examines how far they are socially prescribed, and shows how they constitute a touchstone of the passage into adulthood. By the preliminary findings of a research on age transition of adolescents suffering Type 1 diabetes in France, the author questions the social ideal of managing and optimizing one's capacities, projecting oneself over time, being flexible and breaking the ties of dependence, and underlines how these social exhortations can bring new forms of determinism and disempowerment. [Publisher's text].