Our Breast Cancer, Ourselves: Survivors' Experiences of Informed Choice, Comparison, and Cultural Legibility

• In Event: 41021 - Student Forum Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Roundtable 10: Health and Illness

Abstract

This paper seeks to investigate the role of popular perceptions of breast cancer in how breast cancer survivors choose treatment, from induced menopause to chemotherapy to breast reconstruction. Breast cancer culture pervades American life with a focus on awareness-building, but the voices of breast cancer survivors themselves are notably missing. Despite the widespread cultural presence of breast cancer in contemporary life, many women feel isolated in their diagnoses and navigation of treatment. A decline in breast cancer activism has left women looking for an outlet to organize their experiences, especially those related to treatment choices. This research utilizes semi-structured in-depth interviews with Californian women who are in remission from breast cancer to understand how they conceptualize their treatment and the agency they had in choosing, or refusing, it. Women facing breast cancer diagnoses negotiate among medical advice, their own feelings and experiences, social pressures, and popular knowledge about breast cancer to make important decisions about treatment. These myriad influences reveal the role society has in what initially appears to be an individual medical situation. This paper adds to research on the biosocial nature of health, modern healthcare, and medical sociology. How do women in remission from breast cancer evaluate the longitudinal impacts of treatment on their quality of life and identity in the context of comparison and personal responsibility narratives?

Author

• Liv Thandiwe Bjorgum, University of California, Berkeley