Paper short abstract:

Breast cancer prevention discourses are riddled with references to individual responsibilities for health. Yamatji women are not only exposed to the moralizing discourses of biomedicine, but also culturally specific ones that blame a woman for a positive breast cancer diagnosis.

Paper long abstract:

For decades breast cancer had been stigmatized, but over the last two decades education and changing attitudes have considerably reduced this stigma, or so it is believed. Looking closely at breast cancer prevention discourses, it is strikingly apparent that lifestyle choices, and with it a person's individual responsibility for their health, are heavily emphasized within biomedicine. Yamatji women are subjected to this moralizing biomedical discourse of personal responsibility, and a more culturally specific one: among Australian Aboriginal groups, it is widely believed that a positive breast cancer diagnosis is the result of having broken a taboo. This paper discusses these discourses, and shows how the moral determinism of a positive diagnosis is therefore not only embedded within biomedicince, but also within specific Australian Aboriginal health beliefs that in this instance holds the individual responsible for their own health. Transgressing against these rules - breaking a taboo - subsequently exposes the individual to shaming by family and community members and social isolation as a consequence. Trying to avoid the moral judgement from community members by shunning certain services such as mammograms, Yamatji women draw moral judgement from medical professionals and others as being irresponsible and ignorant highlighting once again the moral determinism of biomedicine in breast cancer discourses.