Biomedicalization

During the 1950s the scope of American medicine began to expand to include concerns such as alcoholism, drug addiction, and obesity in an ongoing process called medicalization. The editors of this collection argue that we are in the midst of another major transformation in American medicine, "biomedicalization," the result of dramatic, largely techno-scientific changes in the organization and practices of biomedicine since the mid-1980s. While medicalization attempts to control biomedical phenomena, biomedicalization increasingly seeks to transform them, largely through sooner-rather-than-later techno-scientific interventions that not only treat but also often enhance bodies and their function. This collection features the pioneering essay in which the editors first theorized biomedicalization and the multiple, interacting, and shifting processes that define it. In addition to theoretical engagements with patterns of medicalization and biomedicalization, the collection includes case studies emphasizing technologies of difference and of enhancement. Those focused on difference take up matters including the business of fertility medicine, the construction of techno-scientific identities through MRIs, new molecular epidemiological constructions of "persons at risk," and the first FDA-approved race-based drug. Essays about biomedical enhancement address Viagra, chemoprevention, discourses of personal responsibility surrounding weight-loss surgeries, and the informatics of diagnosis in biopsychiatry. The range of sites of biomedicalization underscores the breadth of its impact. Contributors: Natalie Boero; Adele E. Clarke; Jennifer R. Fishman; Jennifer Ruth Fosket; Kelly Joyce; Jonathan Kahn; Laura Mamo; Jackie Orr; Elianne Riska; Janet K. Shim; Sara Shostak