Cancer, Culture, Politics

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide. Global structural inequalities compound uneven prevention, treatment and health outcomes for cancer patients and complicate the lives of patients’ families, medical practitioners and other caregivers. Research and development in oncological science and technology and global health cancer interventions are shaped by unequal transnational flows of capital and labor and by both national and nationalist interests. Cancer is hyper-charged with cultural metaphors and discourses of morality leading to both victim-blaming and to narratives of survivor and techno-medical heroics. Social activist movements and global public health initiatives use varied strategies with mixed results to destigmatize cancer and to hold carcinogenic-producing, environmentally hazardous industries accountable. This course examines these cultural politics of disease, medical science and technology through close reading of ethnographies of cancer to understand the lived experiences of cancer in diverse contexts around the world with case studies from the United States, China, India, Botswana, and Brazil (among others). We will consider how ethnographically grounded research can point to solutions for more equitable prevention, treatment, and care.