Overview

Western medicine-especially in contrast with non-Western traditions of medical practice-is widely thought of as a coherent and unified field in which beliefs, definitions, and judgments are shared. Marc Berg and Annemarie Mol debunk this myth with an interdisciplinary and intercultural collection of essays that reveals the significantly varied ways practitioners of “conventional” Western medicine handle bodies, study test results, configure statistics, and converse with patients . Combining theoretical work with interviews and direct observation of the activities and interactions of doctors, nurses, technicians, and patients, the contributors to this volume provide comparative studies of specific cases. Individual chapters explore topics such as the contested domain of fetal surgery in a California hospital, the construction of gender identity before transsexual surgery in Germany, and differences in the treatment and definition of pain by two clinics in France. Differences in Medicine advances earlier studies on medicine’s social diversity and regional variations to expose significant differences in the presumptions and decisions that affect patients’ lives, and marks a dramatic development in both the study of medicine and in science studies generally. Revealing the ways in which the bodies and lives of people are constructed as medical objects by practitioners, technologies, and textbooks, this collection calls for and initiates new, more textured investigations and theories of the body in medicine and the practice of science. It will open new discussions among medical and healthcare professionals as well as scholars in medical anthropology, science studies, sociology, philosophy, and the history of medicine. Contributors. Isabelle Baszanger, Marc Berg, Geoffrey C. Bowker, Monica J. Casper, Charis M. Cussins, Nicolas Dodier, Stefan Hirschauer, Annemarie Mol, Vicky Singleton, Susan Leigh Star, Stefan Timmermans, Dick Willems

Full Product Details

Author:   Marc Berg ,  Annemarie Mol
Publisher:   Duke University Press
Imprint:   Duke University Press
Weight:   0.708kg
ISBN:  

9780822321620

ISBN 10:   0822321629
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   30 June 1998
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii Differences in Medicine: An Introduction / Annemarie Mol and Marc Berg 1 Performing Sexes and Genders in Medical Practices / Stefan Hirschauer 13 Working on and around Human Fetuses: The Contested Domain of Fetal Surgery 28 Clinical Practice and Procedures in Occupational Medicine: A Study of the Framing of Individuals / Nicolas Dodier 53 Stabilizing Instabilities: The Role of the Laboratory in the United Kingdom Cervical Screening Programme / Vicky Singleton 86 Inhaling Drugs and Making Worlds: The Proliferation of Lungs and Asthmas / Dick Willems 105 Pain Physicians: All Alike, All Different / Isabelle Baszanger 119 Missing Links, Making Links: The Performance of Some Atheroscleroses / Annemarie Mol 144 Ontological Choreography: Agency for Women Patients in an Infertility Clinic / Charis M. Cussins 166 The Architecture of Difference: Visibility, Control, and Comparability in Building a Nursing Interventions Classification / Stefan Timmermans, Geoffrey C. Bowker, & Susan Leigh Star 202 Order(s) and Disorder(s): Of Protocols and Medical Practices / Marc Berg 226 References 247 Index 267 Contributors 271

Reviews

"""An outstanding example of some of the best work done at the research front of the field and of recent work that strives to go beyond both technological and social/cultural determinism.""'Alberto Cambrosio, McGill University ""This book, as part of a 'second wave' of science studies, advances our understanding of patients, bodies, and subjectivities in much the same way the first wave altered our understanding of objectivity and experimental practice.""--Bruno Latour, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines"

An outstanding example of some of the best work done at the research front of the field and of recent work that strives to go beyond both technological and social/cultural determinism. 'Alberto Cambrosio, McGill University This book, as part of a 'second wave' of science studies, advances our understanding of patients, bodies, and subjectivities in much the same way the first wave altered our understanding of objectivity and experimental practice. --Bruno Latour, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines

An outstanding example of some of the best work done at the research front of the field and of recent work that strives to go beyond both technological and social/cultural determinism. -Alberto Cambrosio, McGill University This book, as part of a 'second wave' of science studies, advances our understanding of patients, bodies, and subjectivities in much the same way the first wave altered our understanding of objectivity and experimental practice. -Bruno Latour, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines

Author Information

Marc Berg is a researcher at the School of Health Sciences at Maastricht University. Annemarie Mol is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Twente.

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