Defying Doctors, Dirt and Disease: Managing Christian Science Identity in Biomedical Spaces

• In Event: 3483 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 10. Religion and Religiosity: Culture, Context, and Impact on Life-choices

Abstract

Biomedicine has become increasingly entangled with both personal identity and social opportunity. Within the current U.S. political climate fraught with healthcare policy debates, the social power of biomedicine to shape personal identities through the medicalization of daily life can be overlooked. This paper, based on findings from my Master’s Thesis which was submitted to the Department of Sociology at Boston College in 2011, draws attention to the intersection of biomedicine, identity, and social opportunity through the lens of the religious and healing tradition of Christian Science. Situating my analysis in theories of embodiment, biomedical power (Foucault 1977), risk society (Giddens 1991) and remission society (Frank 1995), I use semi-structured interviews with 12 Christian Scientists to examine how religious identities shape adherents’ options for navigating the biomedical world. I analyze processes of identity negotiation during cases of religious deviance when Christian Scientists choose to use biomedical treatment. I find that constructing the body as a site of religious demonstration enables adherents to negotiate potentially threatening medical interactions in ways that continue to defy medical authority and affirm religious beliefs within and through secular spaces.

Author

• Tayler Lynn Nelson, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities