Biomedicalization and the Embodied Self: Mechanisms of Medical Authority in Breast Cancer Management
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Drawing on biopower and embodiment, the article examines how biomedical authority in breast cancer care is produced through technologies (mammography, genetic testing, advanced imaging), institutional hierarchies, and standardized protocols. These mechanisms expand surveillance from disease to risk, privilege visual/objective evidence over lived sensation, and convert informed consent into procedure, narrowing autonomy. The analysis conceptualizes breast cancer as an embodied disruption: treatments reconfigure appearance, sexuality, and intimacy, generating body alienation and identity dissonance; reconstruction sits ambivalently between self-recovery and biomedical normalization. Yet agency persists. Individually, patients seek second opinions, combine complementary practices with conventional care, and cultivate “epistemic agency” via self-education. Collectively, advocacy networks mobilize narratives and lobby for integrative, patient-centered models that rebalance psychosocial with clinical outcomes. The article’s contribution is to link biomedicalization to identity work and to delineate “structural coercion” whereby choice is constrained within guideline-driven menus. It calls for care arrangements that retain the benefits of standardization while institutionalizing dialogic consent, legitimizing embodied testimony, and broadening success metrics beyond survival toward quality, dignity, and control. Keywords : biomedicalization; embodiment; biopower; patient autonomy; standardized protocols; structural coercion; breast cancer. Received Date: July 19, 2025 Accepted Date: August 11, 2025 Published Date: August 30, 2025 Available Online at https://www.ijsrisjournal.com/index.php/ojsfiles/article/view/426
Author: Nadia belbah
Institution: Université Ibn-Tofail
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4414570339
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