Stories without Significance in the Discourse of Breast Reconstruction

Abstract

Breast reconstruction is an everyday, apparently nonviolent, even benevolent, remaking of the normal, and the reasons for why reconstruction is motivated and legitimate are uncontroversial and widely accepted. In this article the author will, through Donna Haraway's way of conceptualizing discourses, analyze what she calls “stories without significance.” The author has mapped the stories and interpretations of women undergoing reconstruction, stories that are not becoming part of the monovocal discourse of breast reconstruction. Thus, she focuses on the things said that are not assigned significance, the silences and impossibilities. The article is also an effort to account for some of the invisible work that goes into the process of breast reconstruction in dialogue with the feminist field of science and technology studies. This to explore the (re)making of the normal in a medical practice and reflect on how modest interventions could be made.

Keywords

breast reconstruction normal Donna Haraway invisible work medical practice

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