The Biopolitics of “Previving”

• In Event: 21081 - Section on Sociology of Body and Embodiment Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 3: Bodies & Politics

Abstract

This project analyzes the biopolitics of the “previvor” movement—a biosocial health movement made up of individuals who have an elevated predisposition to being diagnosed with cancer due to genetic risk. Previvors are individuals who seek genetic testing, find that they exhibit genetic mutations linked to cancer (BRCA1, BRCA2, CHEK2, PALB2, ATM, etc.), and choose to undergo preventative interventions such as double mastectomy, salpingo-oophorectomy, and radical hysterectomy. While examining the interplay between medicalization and family-building/parenthood, as well as how race, class, gender, and sexuality affect the experiences of previvors, this research prioritizes sympathy and care for previvors and the difficult choices they make. By adding a necessary intersectional and biopolitical feminist analysis, this study calls attention to the currently unmet needs of previvors and sheds light on the social disparities that exist within the difficult process of navigating the previvor identity and the “pre-diagnosis” status. I argue that this status itself complicates binary understandings of disability, insofar as previvors are not-yet-ill—they know they may become sick, that they will likely become sick, but they have not yet received a diagnosis, per se. Thus, previvors navigate the complex landscape of pre-disability, a status which is in some sense created through genetic testing itself.

Author

• Alyson K. Spurgas, Trinity College