Breast Cancer and the Post-Surgical Body

Crompvoets, Samantha

doi:10.1057/9780230599789

Cited by 15 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…One of the most apparent ways this negotiation of the vulnerable body occurs is through the experience of mastectomy and breast reconstruction, where a consciousness of the body's altered state requires that the subject rework their being in the world. In studies conducted by Samantha Crompvoets 64 and Lenore Manderson and Lesley Stirling, 65 for instance, mastectomy is seen to radically transform not only the subject's relation to the body, but also the body/ self's boundedness and relation to space. This can be seen, for instance, in that following mastectomy, women must become familiar with a body with new contours, affecting the way their body feels (and looks) with a suddenly flattened chest and altering how they wear clothes, how their body meets other bodies, and how they navigate the peripheries of their body, with objects literally further way.…”

Section: Corporeal Contingencies: Vulnerability As a Relational Ontologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dialectics of Vulnerability: Breast Cancer and the Body in Prognosis

Ehlers¹

2014

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This paper argues that breast cancer prognosis potentially produces a circular dialectic in which a) the subject is compelled to perceive the body as vulnerable and separate (alien) to the self, and the treatments required make the body more vulnerable, more alien and b) this is held in tension with the fact that the very alienation and heightened vulnerability of the body in breast cancer treatment is productive; it collapses the boundaries through which the body and self are understood, often demands a conscious intimacy of/with the body, and points to critical enactments and understandings of embodied subjectivity. I use the concept of dialectics here in a broad sense then, to mark the interaction of apparently conflicting states. While vulnerability is generally thought of as a somato-ontology to be avoided, and as a constraining, negative mode of being, through a shift in perspective it also appears as an enabling state. I argue that vulnerability might be seen as a relational ontology between flesh and self that is both restrictive and generative, where the restriction itself can be generative. Understanding vulnerability in this way might engender the critical politicization of risk and function as the place from which a radically altered/re-conceived politics proceeds. Such a politics would be ethico-political work around the issue of cancer. It would, perhaps, function ultimately as an ethics of vulnerability, foregrounding critical responsibility towards oneself, one's life, the life of others, and the life of the community.

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Section: Corporeal Contingencies: Vulnerability As a Relational Ontologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dialectics of Vulnerability: Breast Cancer and the Body in Prognosis

Ehlers¹

2014

con

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“…In attempts to hide the visible signs of illness, breast cancer patients are often encouraged to wear breast prosthetics and to have breast reconstruction upon the completion of treatment (Crompvoets 2006). In many ways, the breast-less female body challenges cultural expectations of female beauty and sexuality because these bodies are characterized as ambiguous with respect to sex and gender.…”

Section: At the Margins: Alternative Breast Cancer Body Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In attempts to regain a sense of 'wholeness', breast prosthetics and reconstruction are positioned as necessary medical procedures in which they are thought to aid in the healing process (Crompvoets 2006). For instance, when Hannah first spoke with her surgeon she inquired about having a double mastectomy and she was told "that studies show that women do better psychologically if we leave the other breast".…”

Section: At the Margins: Alternative Breast Cancer Body Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rather, these discourses are illustrative of how experiences of cancer become entangled with idealized notions of femininity which compel breast cancer patients to engage in acts (i.e. wearing prosthetics and undergoing breast reconstruction) that allow them to mitigate -or at least temporarily concealsome of the effects of the disease and its various treatments(Cobb and Starr 2012;Crompvoets 2006;Ehlers 2012;Kendrick 2008). In doing so, the breast-less figure is positioned as inferior and undesirable.…”

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confidence: 99%

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'Celebrating Cancer': Young Women Negotiating the Cultural Politics of Survivorship

Peck¹

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This thesis begins with a critical observation that over the past decade, Canadians have witnessed an explosion of discussions in the public sphere about cancer and survivorship, including the celebration of cancer survivors. The proliferation of cancer/survivor discourses circulates expectations about how cancer should be taken on and embodied. There is an urgent need to investigate the effects of such discourses on young women's (a) access to state and community resources, (b) constructions of health, risk and wellbeing, and (c) personal accounts of their bodies and illness experiences. Drawing on 17 in-depth interviews with young female cancer survivors, this thesis investigates the effects of dominant cancer/survivor discourses on the social and material contexts of young women's cancer experiences. I argue that young women's cancer narratives are embedded in discourses of exclusion and responsibilization that actively shape and define what it means to be a 'good' survivor/citizen.

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‘Like going to get a facial’: Heterotopic spaces and gendered aesthetics of commercial Australian reproductive clinics

Sassano,

Mayes

2024

Social Science & Medicine

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Breast Cancer and the Post-Surgical Body

Cited by 15 publications

References 0 publications

The Dialectics of Vulnerability: Breast Cancer and the Body in Prognosis

The Dialectics of Vulnerability: Breast Cancer and the Body in Prognosis

'Celebrating Cancer': Young Women Negotiating the Cultural Politics of Survivorship

‘Like going to get a facial’: Heterotopic spaces and gendered aesthetics of commercial Australian reproductive clinics

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