Holly F. Mathews - Anthropologies of Cancer in Transnational Worlds

Cancer is a transnational condition involving the unprecedented flow of health information, technologies and people across national borders. Such movement raises questions about the nature of therapeutic citizenship, how and where structurally vulnerable populations obtain care, and the political geography of blame associated with this disease. This volume brings together cutting-edge anthropological research carried out across North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia, representing low-, middle- and high-resource countries with a diversity of national health care systems. Contributors ethnographically map the varied nature of cancer experiences and articulate the multiplicity of meanings that survivorship, risk, charity and care entail. They explore institutional frameworks shaping local responses to cancer and underlying political forces and structural variables that frame individual experiences. Of particular concern is the need to interrogate underlying assumptions of research designs that may lead to the naturalizing of hidden agendas or intentions. Running throughout the chapters, moreover, are considerations of moral and ethical issues related to cancer treatment and research. Thematic emphases include the importance of local biologies in the framing of cancer diagnosis and treatment protocols, uncertainty and ambiguity in definitions of biosociality, shifting definitions of patienthood, and the sociality of care and support.

Holly F. Mathews is Professor of Anthropology at East Carolina University.

Nancy J. Burke is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine and the Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, San Francisco.

Eirini Kampriani is adjunct lecturer at IST/University of Hertfordshire and the National School of Public Health, Greece.

The New Strangers

Elizabeth Murphy-Lejeune

Essays across Disciplines

Edited by Mark Osteen

Edited by Adolfo de Oliveira

Migrants, Markets and Mobilities

Edited by Gertrud Hwelmeier and Kristine Krause

Seeking Bridges Towards Mutual Respect

Edited by Joy Hendry and Laara Fitznor

Critique and Engagement in Anthropology

Edited by Pauline Gardiner Barber, Belinda Leach and Winnie Lem

Evolutionary, Cultural and Developmental Perspectives

Edited by Bonnie L. Hewlett

Anticipating Nature

Edited by Kirsten Hastrup and Martin Skrydstrup

Cortney Hughes Rinker

10Senses and Citizenships

Embodying Political Life

Edited by Susanna Trnka, Christine Dureau, and Julie Park

11Environmental Anthropology

Future Directions

Edited by Helen Kopnina and Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet

12Times of Security

Ethnographies of Fear, Protest and the Future

Edited by Martin Holbraad and Morten Axel Pedersen

13Climate Change and Tradition in a Small Island State

The Rising Tide

Peter Rudiak-Gould

14Anthropology and Nature

Edited by Kirsten Hastrup

15Animism and the Question of Life

Istvan Praet

16Anthropology in the Making

Research in Health and Development

Laurent Vidal

17Negotiating Territoriality

Spatial Dialogues Between State and Tradition

Edited by Allan Charles Dawson, Laura Zanotti and Ismael Vaccaro

18HIV/AIDS and the Social Consequences of Untamed Biomedicine

Anthropological Complicities

Graham Fordham

19Environmentalism, Ethical Trade, and Commodification

Technologies of Value and the Forest Stewardship Council in Chile

Adam Henne

20An Anthropology of Robots and AI

Annihilation Anxiety and Machines

Kathleen Richardson

21An Anthropological Economy of Debt

Edited by Bernard Hours and Pepita Ould Ahmed

22Ethnographies in Pan Pacific Research

Tensions and Positionings

Edited by Robert E. Rinehart, elke emerald, and Rangi Matamua

23Anthropologies of Cancer in Transnational Worlds

Edited by Holly F. Mathews, Nancy J. Burke, and Eirini Kampriani