{"title":"Ambivalent Speculations: Learning to Live with Barrett's Esophagus in the UK Using Facebook Support Groups.","authors":"Elspeth Davies","doi":"10.1080/01459740.2024.2376004","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Drawing on fieldwork in Facebook support groups, in this article I explore how people, now patients, learnt to live with Barrett's esophagus, a risk state or \"precancer\" for a type of esophageal cancer. This diagnosis brought the possibility of both facing and averting cancerous futures into the present. Far from passive recipients, members worked to foreground speculations of \"wanted futures\" in which prompt surveillance successfully prevented cancer deaths, transforming cancer risk into an opportunity for hope. Speculation here was an ambivalent and active process, involving not only the \"observation of potentiality,\" but the opening up and foreclosing of both desirable and undesirable potentialities.</p>","PeriodicalId":47460,"journal":{"name":"Medical Anthropology","volume":" ","pages":"1-14"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Medical Anthropology","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2024.2376004","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Drawing on fieldwork in Facebook support groups, in this article I explore how people, now patients, learnt to live with Barrett's esophagus, a risk state or "precancer" for a type of esophageal cancer. This diagnosis brought the possibility of both facing and averting cancerous futures into the present. Far from passive recipients, members worked to foreground speculations of "wanted futures" in which prompt surveillance successfully prevented cancer deaths, transforming cancer risk into an opportunity for hope. Speculation here was an ambivalent and active process, involving not only the "observation of potentiality," but the opening up and foreclosing of both desirable and undesirable potentialities.
期刊介绍：
Medical Anthropology provides a global forum for scholarly articles on the social patterns of ill-health and disease transmission, and experiences of and knowledge about health, illness and wellbeing. These include the nature, organization and movement of peoples, technologies and treatments, and how inequalities pattern access to these. Articles published in the journal showcase the theoretical sophistication, methodological soundness and ethnographic richness of contemporary medical anthropology. Through the publication of empirical articles and editorials, we encourage our authors and readers to engage critically with the key debates of our time. Medical Anthropology invites manuscripts on a wide range of topics, reflecting the diversity and the expanding interests and concerns of researchers in the field.
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