Paper short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil’s plastic surgery clinics and public hospitals, this paper shows how new medical technologies get incorporated into consumer, sexual, and aesthetic modes of self-governance.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil's plastic surgery clinics and public hospitals, this paper shows how new medical technologies get incorporated into consumer, sexual, and aesthetic modes of self-governance. Brazil has become a global leader in plastic surgery, a prime destination for medical tourism and an innovator in surgical technique. Brazil is also unusual in providing practical training in cosmetic procedures to residents and free operations to what surgeons call the "popular classes." I track how plastic surgery -known simply as plástica - is emerging as an experimental and didactic practice in this environment. Surgeons in residence from Brazil, Latin America, and beyond get invaluable training and develop new techniques in the "messy conditions" of Brazil's busy public hospitals with long patient lines. And patients also absorb through their interactions in clinics and via the enormous media coverage of plástica a particular way of working on the self-body. In a context of scarcity, patients practice "aesthetic triage," re-prioritizing their preferences for particular procedures in response to pedagogical needs of the clinic. Much literature on biopolitics emphasizes the use of notions of normal and pathological to control populations, discipline bodies, and enforce various norms of class, race, and gender. But I argue that the positive, analogical, encompassing notion of "aesthetic health" here involves a process of self-care that transcends the boundaries of medical institutions, and is infused with the desires and anxieties of Brazil's neoliberal economy and sophisticated culture industries.

Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine how tissue collections are used in research in Iceland and how they become commodities in research. How surplus materials from humans are becoming more and more important in research and are becoming commodities

Paper long abstract:

Modern biotechnology and informatics have opened up a new world in which a multitude of information can be isolated and exploited for various purposes. This paper will examine how tissue collections are used in research in Iceland and how they become commodities in research. Various institutes in Iceland and elsewhere collect and record tissue samples and information derived from them. These bio-banks are often stored in connections to pathological laboratories but today we are starting to focus on other surplus materials from humans. Modern societies with increased focus on medical research most of our bodily materials have gained value, for example materials that used to be categorized as waste like materials from breast reduction are seen as potential research materials. How surplus materials from humans are becoming more and more important in research and are becoming commodities. How do we see these transactions from materials that used to be waste over to something of value in medical research and how do we benefit from it?

Paper short abstract:

PMTCT-guidelines in Lesotho follow the WHO recommendations, which don't fit neatly with traditional ideas regarding birthing, breastfeeding and weaning. My presentation looks on conflicting demands by providers and consumers of health care and how cultural implications impact on a clinical trial.

Paper long abstract:

From a biomedical point of view prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) requests behavioural changes regarding birthing, breastfeeding and weaning. As a technological intervention PMTCT affects processes closely connected to traditional ideas about proper childcare, since attitudes towards early childcare imply both social and biological dimensions, which influence behaviour of health care providers and health care consumers.

The Lesotho PMTCT guidelines follow the WHO Guidelines for resource-constrained countries, which in most cases provide women with a short course ART-regimen. HIV exposed infants are treated additionally with a post partum short course exposition prophylaxis and mothers are advised to opt for either bottle-feeding or a short period of exclusive breast-feeding followed by fast weaning. In Lesotho, however, most HIV-positive women opt for the latter without any additional food or liquid given to the child, although long term mixed feeding with additional nutriments is culturally normative.

Apparently, technological interventions and advices given to the women during counselling sessions clash with cultural norms of early childcare and a high number of mothers lack compliance due to economic and socio-cultural conditions. My presentation looks on conflicting demands of providers and consumers of health care and how cultural implications impact on a clinical trial. The trial suggests a licensed regimen, which indicates comparable safety and efficacy to other PMTCT regimen and better adaptation to traditional concepts in Lesotho.

Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the consequences of so called “predictive” or “pre-symptomatic” genetic testing on the institutional landscape of genetic counselling and on ideas about “good counselling” in Austria.

Paper long abstract:

While genetic reasoning has a long tradition in biomedical research and clinical practices, the development of so called "predictive" or "pre-symptomatic" genetic tests, which became available for clinical diagnostics from the early 1990ies onwards in increasing numbers, gave it a new turn. For the first time gene mutations which were held as causal factors for the development of "late onset diseases" such as Corea Huntington or familiar breast cancer became diagnosable long in advance of any manifest disease symptoms. Amongst other consequences these new prognostic possibilities transformed the ways of how genetic counselling services are institutionalised and practiced. In Austria the availability of genetic tests e.g. led to the establishment of a new type of genetic counselling which is characterised by a specialisation on particular hereditary diseases and the incorporation of genetic counselling in more broader programmes of medical care. This paper examines how this development took place in Austria and shows its impact on the institutional landscape of genetic counselling and on ideas about "good counselling".