Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the case of breast cancer, drawing on the ethnographic context in Greece in order to approach the interplay between the systems of control and surveillance, and the ones of resistance and negotiation.

Paper long abstract:

Cancer, described as the "emperor of all maladies", remains the main disease and cause of death worldwide. Although it is considered a non- communicable disease, many scholars argue that it is communicable in a broader sense, that of the awareness of it being contagious. This paper derives from an ongoing anthropological research drawing on the ethnographic context in Greece. It focuses on the breast cancer case in order to approach the interplay between the systems of control and surveillance, and the ones of resistance and negotiation. The critical analysis of the multidimensional networks - that "govern" the female body, promoting its own health - give prominence to issues related to diagnosis and treatment as well as to the medical practices and technologies, but at the same time it turns the disease management into both the surveillance context through the social control, and the self- surveillance through the self-care practices.