Constructing amniocentesis: Maternal and medical discourses

Rayna Rapp

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

    Abstract

    The language of biomedical science is powerful. Its neutralizing vocabulary, explanatory syntax, and distancing pragmatics provide universal descriptions of human bodies and their life processes that appear to be pre-cultural or noncultural. But as the field of medical anthropology constantly reminds us, bodies are also and always culturally constituted, and their aches, activities, and accom- plishments are continuously assigned meanings. W hile the discourse of biomedi- cine speaks of the inevitable march of scientific and clinical progress, its practices are constantly open to interpretation. Its hegemonic definitions routinely require acceptance, transformation, or contestation from the embodied “objects�? whose subjectivity it so powerfully affects.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Title of host publicationSituated Lives
    Subtitle of host publicationGender and Culture in Everyday Life
    PublisherTaylor and Francis
    Pages128-141
    Number of pages14
    ISBN (Electronic)9781135250447
    ISBN (Print)9780415918060
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Jan 1 2014

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Social Sciences(all)

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