Assemblages of Cancer: Experiences and Contexts of Breast Cancer in the UK, France and Italy

Assemblages of cancer offers an in-depth comparative analysis of breast cancer, linking patients’ experiences with the biomedical, political and cultural context of the disease. The book is based on ten years of ethnographic research with patients and medical professionals across the UK, France and Italy, highlighting both the shared specificities and internal variations of breast cancer across these three countries. It shows how breast cancer experiences can be best understood as provisional assemblages involving transformed bodies, uncertainties linked to a possible relapse, and tinkering with standardised protocols and pathways to make treatments work for each patient.

The book explores how experiences of breast cancer are transformed by universal healthcare systems impacted by processes of privatisation, local variations in the workings of biomedicine, and changes to the ‘pink ribbon’ discourses and advocacy. It presents an in-depth analysis of how breast cancer and its treatments alter not only women’s bodies but also their personal and professional lives. It further analyses patients’ strategies to attempt build new meaning and values around the uncertainties brought by cancer and its consequences.

Assemblages of cancer is an essential contribution to the social studies of medicine that, by redefining the relations between illness, biomedicine and society, develops a new understanding of breast cancer in contemporary Europe.