IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v41y1995i4p461-473.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cultural studies of biomedicine: An agenda for research

Author

Listed:
  • Good, Mary-Jo Delvecchio

Abstract

This paper outlines a 'cultural studies' approach to investigations of the transnational world of contemporary biomedicine. Although biomedicine is fostered by an international political economy and global community of medical educators and bioscientists, it is taught, practiced, organized and consumed in local contexts. This essay argues that cultural studies of contemporary biomedicine should focus on the dynamic relationship between local and international worlds of knowledge, technology and practice. Three issues illustrate this approach: (1) an exploration of the tensions inherent in the local and cosmopolitan shaping of 'clinical narratives', with examples drawn from comparative studies of oncology; (2) an exploration of the influence of biomedical research findings and international clinical trials on the production of clinical narratives, with examples drawn from current research on breast cancer; and (3) an exploration of the local or national and 'international' or 'transnational' dimensions of the production of biotechnologies and pharmaceutical therapeutics. The essay concludes with a discussion of the limits that privilege either universal or local perspectives and claims to knowledge and the ethical challenges that become apparent from this perspective.

Suggested Citation

  • Good, Mary-Jo Delvecchio, 1995. "Cultural studies of biomedicine: An agenda for research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 461-473, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:41:y:1995:i:4:p:461-473
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(95)00008-U
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Henckes, Nicolas, 2009. "Narratives of change and reform processes: Global and local transactions in French psychiatric hospital reform after the Second World War," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 511-518, February.
    2. Rock, Melanie & Mykhalovskiy, Eric & Schlich, Thomas, 2007. "People, other animals and health knowledges: Towards a research agenda," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(9), pages 1970-1976, May.
    3. Bourgain, Catherine & Pourtau, Lionel & Mazouni, Chafika & Bungener, Martine & Bonastre, et Julia, 2020. "Imperfect biomarkers for adjuvant chemotherapy in early stage breast cancer with good prognosis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    4. Martimianakis, Maria Athina (Tina) & Hafferty, Frederic W., 2013. "The world as the new local clinic: A critical analysis of three discourses of global medical competency," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 31-38.
    5. Gogna, Mónica Laura & Pecheny, Mario M. & Ibarlucía, Inés & Manzelli, Hernán & López, Sara Barrón, 2009. "The reproductive needs and rights of people living with HIV in Argentina: Health service users' and providers' perspectives," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 813-820, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:41:y:1995:i:4:p:461-473. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.