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This paper discusses ongoing changes in orientations to cancer disease control in the Global North, particularly health promoter attempts to identify the early cancerous body. The paper suggests that the emphasis on early diagnosis of cancer aligns ideas on a symptomatic management of the public with a process in which 'what counts as cancer symptoms' is steadily being subdivided, classified and expanded. This alignment, the paper suggests, is an example of how biomedicine potentially extends its boundaries into everyday forms of embodied, social life by changing the social and moral value placed on bodily sensations. Also, the paper echoes ongoing conversations in medical anthropology on symptom experiences; suggesting that symptom experiences may be a suitable analytic axiom for exploring the relationship between biomedical knowledge production and embodied experience. It is suggested that an anthropology of sensations is a useful analytical framework for such explorations.

Anthropological research on biomedicine voices patient perspectives of medical encounters and describes biomedicine as a cultural, historical construct. It reveals sociocultural particularities of biomedicine obscured by the illusion of objective, rational, and natural reality, or a so-called "aura of factuality"(Geertz 1973, Rhodes 1996). Uncertainty and discomfort arise for patients facing culturally-specific models of illness and healing considered acultural by biomedical discourse.Medical anthropologists have long described biomedicine as a socioculturally-embedded site of social control, reflective and reproductive of broader social priorities such as depersonalized capitalist efficiency, power-reinforcing hierarchy, commodification of bodies, neoliberal individualism, alienation of body and mind, etc. (Foucault 1975, Baer et. al 1986, Martin 1987, Scheper-Hughes and Lock 1987, Kleinmann 1988). Others have depicted the biomedical clinic as a culturally unique space that breaks otherwise ubiquitous norms—for example, giving a near-stranger (a doctor) unprecedented physical access and knowledge of one's body—and requires re-socialization for its participants (healers and patients) to accept unique social rules (Taussig 1980, Konner 1987, Good 1994). Biomedicine as a system of knowledge and practice thus has a special role of both breaking and reinforcing social codes. Biomedicine is a socially distinct structure that presents itself as natural and consistent with the rest of society, by way of justification through scientific rationality and mirroring of other societal power structures—ultimately creating ambiguities and confusion for the seriously sick seeking biomedical care.This is not to strictly distinguish biomedicine as confined to the clinic, or to depict it as a distinctly bordered institution ready for the sick to enter—on the contrary, biomedicine's explanatory models pervade everyday consciousness in the Western world. As Baer et al. (1986) write, "the dominant ideological and social patterns in medical care are intimately related to hegemonic ideologies and patterns outside of medicine"(95). This makes it difficult to epistemologically disentangle the biomedical domain from the rest of society.Nonetheless, from a patient's perspective, there is a distinct social territory, or a "sick world" for the seriously sick who seek biomedical treatment. As Sontag (1978) puts it, "everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick" and "the patient enters a duplicate world with special rules"(35). This territory consists not only of distinct metaphors and social rules (Sontag's focus), but also patients, caregivers, institutions, and treatment processes. It structures power and knowledge regarding the body (most of which is allocated with physicians), and upon entry requires a type of socialization, or education in new social norms. For the physician or the anthropologist, biomedicine may represent an omnipresent cultural explanatory system—but for many patients, the mentally transformative and absorptive qualities of the institutions one enters during illness are equally relevant due to the uncertainty they cause and the mental work they require for entry.This essay distinguishes the "healthy world" from the "sick world" to point out the distinct learning process required of the sick in order to fully engage with the new norms in the process of biomedical care—a transition that often results in uncertainty for patients. Rather than consider biomedicine as an "intervention" that imposes on sickness and life, this essay, and the patients interviewed for it, more closely describes a model of entrance into biomedical care as a semi-encompassing "sick world" with its own culture.

En introduktion til Tidsskrift for Forskning i Sygdom og Samfund nr. 20: Tid og Kræft.

I denne artikel undersøger vi ældre, alene-boende menneskers erfaringer med at bo alene og have brug for omsorg på grund af kræftsygdom. Vi har særligt fokus på at undersøge foran- dringer i den danske velfærdsstats politiske økonomi, herunder hvordan forventninger om at involvere familie i omsorgsarbejde, udfolder sig i konkrete hverdagssituationer. Med ud- gangspunkt i detaljerede beskrivelser af informanterne Lise og Henriks erfaringer foreslår vi, at vi ved at betragte omsorg som generativt arbejde (Buch, 2018) bliver opmærksomme på de mange forskelligartede praksisser, der knytter sig til syge, alene-boende menneskers livsopretholdelse. Gennem beskrivelser af omsorg som udveksling og kropsarbejde, bliver det tydeligt, at omsorg forhandles i krydsfeltet mellem velfærdsstatens politiske økonomi og moralske forestillinger om forbundethed og selvstændighed. Vi konkluderer at alene- boende mennesker, når de bliver syge, kastes ud i moralsk pionerarbejde (Rapp, 1999), der indebærer inter-generationelle forhandlinger, og som afspejler forandringer i den danske velfærdsstats historisk store opmærksomhed mod omsorgserhvervet.

Abstract In this article we explore how institutions and individuals in Denmark deal with uncertainty of cancer in childhood. Based on a seven months ethnographic fieldwork conducted on a paediatric oncology ward from 2011-2013, we examine how uncertainty and insecurities manifest in the interface between cancer treatment and childhood in the Danish welfare state. We develop our argument theoretically with the American pragmatist philosophy and its ideas that people are responding to a hazardous world in constant transformation. Through a focus on micro practices we explore how uncertainty manifests especially for children and their families, and how they navigate insecurities. Important collective attempts to create some measure of certainty and security are done in treatment practices, but we argue that biomedical practices dealing with uncertainty of cancer paradoxically give rise to existential and social uncertainty among children and their families, which they struggle with, also after the end of cancer treatment, as long-term social effects of cancer in childhood. We suggest that more attention could be paid to assist children in dealing with uncertainty and insecurities imminent to being in cancer treatment in the Danish welfare state and the social effects of this.

Vores samfund forandrer sig kontinuerligt; teknologier samt demografiske og kulturelle tendenser ændrer vores vilkår og rammer for erkendelse – den måde vi ræsonnerer på, og de muligheder vi har for at træffe valg og handle gennem livet. Menneskers oplevelser og håndtering af usikkerhed og uvished i forbindelse med sygdom og lidelse kalder derfor til hver en tid på empirisk forskning og diskussion. Etymologisk henleder ordet usikkerhed til 'en tilstand af fare' eller 'at være i en ubehagelig situation'. Ordet er flertydigt og danner meningsfællesskaber med uvished, tilfældighed, uro, ubeslutsomhed, skepsis og ikke mindst tvivl. Denne flertydighed reflekteres formentlig i det paradoksale forhold, at når vi taler om lidelse, sygdom og død, er disse uforudsigelige og dog uundgåelige hændelser i et menneskes liv.

This article explores how institutions and individuals in Denmark deal with the uncertainty of cancer in children. Based on a seven months ethnographic fieldwork conducted on a paediatric oncology ward during the period 2011-2013, the article examines how uncertainty manifests itself in the interface between cancer treatment and institutional childhood in the Danish welfare state. The argument is based on American pragmatist philosophy and its ideas about how people respond to a hazardous world in constant transformation. Through a focus on practices, the article explores how clinical and existential uncertainty arises for children and their families, and how they deal with this by navigating their way round the more tangible forms of insecurities. Important collective attempts to circumscribe clinical uncertainty are part of this navigation, but the article argues that epidemiologically based practices of dealing with the clinical uncertainty of cancer paradoxically gives rise to existential and social uncertainty for the affected children and their families, which they struggle with during treatment and even as long-term social effects into adolescence and young adulthood. The article suggests that more attention should be paid to assist children to manage the social and existential uncertainty that emerges in the interface between being a child in cancer treatment and being a child in the Danish welfare state.

In this article, we present an extended case analysis of the unruly reception of the HPV vaccine in Denmark. More specifically, we explore what happens to visions of a healthy future when high levels of social trust in a public vaccination programme are suddenly infused with uncertainty and doubt. Capturing the Danish public in 2013-2015, national news and social media platforms shared dra-matic stories of young women confined to their beds following their HPV vaccinations. The Danish healthcare authorities reacted to this seemingly accelerating problem by setting up HPV clinics to care for the women. Simultaneously, HPV vaccination uptake plunged. Based on long-term ethno-graphic field research, we present the experiences of two main interlocutors, who both find them-selves in difficult situations and having to revise their visions of the future: Sophie, a young woman with suspected HPV vaccine side effects and Martin, a physician working in an HPV clinic. Overall, their accounts shed light on situations emerging during a challenging period in the 2010s in which the Danish healthcare system was adjusting to a new information and media landscape. We show that the promise of a healthy future – sustained by welfare and vaccine technologies – is indeed a communal venture that is vulnerable to suspension and even collapse. When sufferings (such as pain or fatigue) were publicly paired and un-paired with the vaccine, it generated and sustained pervasive uncertainties and painful feelings of being doubted by others – reflecting and highlighting inherent tensions of preventative medicine and the Danish welfare society, including the subtle acts of power and resistance that occur within it.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Danes undergoing CT scans as part of follow-up testing for potential lung cancer, we explore how access to technologies generates diagnostic uncertainty and trends of continuous testing. Our research is set in the context of a welfare state that has cultivated forms of government whose public health branches focus on early diagnosis and cancer control. Many studies on biotechnologies emphasise subject-making and power relations. Inspired by the work of Veena Das, we adopt an approach that focuses on the entanglement of diagnostic investigations with everyday life. We argue that being followed establishes a mode of being which we call 'in the meantime'. Life in the meantime is equally characterised by a dramatic mode of being—that is, waiting for death—and an ambiguous mode of being: feeling quite well. As with any life crisis, it involves some sense of agency. We show in this paper how life in the meantime informs an ordinary ethics that encourages three ethical concerns in everyday life: firstly, how to inhabit life in the meantime? Secondly, what good is the testing for? And finally, what is a good death?

Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Danes undergoing CT scans as part of follow-up testing for potential lung cancer, we explore how access to technologies generates diagnostic uncertainty and trends of continuous testing. Our research is set in the context of a welfare state that has cultivated forms of government whose public health branches focus on early diagnosis and cancer control. Many studies on biotechnologies emphasise subject-making and power relations. Inspired by the work of Veena Das, we adopt an approach that focuses on the entanglement of diagnostic investigations with everyday life. We argue that being followed establishes a mode of being which we call 'in the meantime'. Life in the meantime is equally characterised by a dramatic mode of being—that is, waiting for death—and an ambiguous mode of being: feeling quite well. As with any life crisis, it involves some sense of agency. We show in this paper how life in the meantime informs an ordinary ethics that encourages three ethical concerns in everyday life: firstly, how to inhabit life in the meantime? Secondly, what good is the testing for? And finally, what is a good death?

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Medical Anthropology on 12.10.2015, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2015.1102248 ; In recent years an extensive social gradient in cancer outcome has attracted much attention, with late diagnosis proposed as one important reason for this. Whereas earlier research has investigated health care seeking among cancer patients, these social differences may be better understood by looking at health care seeking practices among people who are not diagnosed with cancer. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork among two different social classes in Denmark, our aim in this article is to explore the relevance of class to health care seeking practices and illness concerns. In the higher middle class, we predominantly encountered health care seeking resembling notions of health consumerism, practices sanctioned and encouraged by the health care system. However among people in the lower social class, health care seeking was often shaped by the inseparability of physical, political, and social dimensions of discomfort, making these practices difficult for the health care system to accommodate.

In recent years an extensive social gradient in cancer outcome has attracted much attention, with late diagnosis proposed as one important reason for this. Whereas earlier research has investigated health care seeking among cancer patients, these social differences may be better understood by looking at health care seeking practices among people who are not diagnosed with cancer. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork among two different social classes in Denmark, our aim in this article is to explore the relevance of class to health care seeking practices and illness concerns. In the higher middle class, we predominantly encountered health care seeking resembling notions of health consumerism, practices sanctioned and encouraged by the health care system. However among people in the lower social class, health care seeking was often shaped by the inseparability of physical, political, and social dimensions of discomfort, making these practices difficult for the health care system to accommodate.