Paper short abstract:

What makes endometriosis a biosocial experience? This paper focuses on medical work and on the everyday life experience of women affected by this painful and chronic disease, in order to highlight the entanglement of its biological and social dimensions.

Paper long abstract:

Endometriosis is a chronic and debilitating disease affecting between 10 and 20% of women in their reproductive age, but it has long been forgotten, ignored and underestimated. However, we are now - since a decade - in a context of visibilization and publicization of endometriosis. Historical and sociological studies have shown what chronic diseases do to modern medicine: they challenge its efficacity and force it to reorganize itself. The goal of therapy becomes primarily to manage the disease and its chronic nature: this has an effect on medical work but also in the everyday life of patients. This is what I study in my doctoral research on endometriosis, through ethnographic observation of a specialized hospital center for endometriosis in Paris and in-depth interviews with women affected by the disease. In front of endometriosis, the medical profession faces its limits, concerning the diagnosis, the necessity for a multidisciplinary care, and the treatment. There is no cure for endometriosis and women have to manage chronic pain in their everyday life, at work, with friends, in their family, and their intimacy. They often turn to alternative or complementary therapies, ranging from osteopathy and acupuncture to psychotherapy, naturopathy or meditation. In this presentation I would like to understand endometriosis as a biosocial experience, in the medical setting as well as in all the other social spheres where it's involved.