Sociocultural aspects of the medicalisation of infertility: a comparative reading of two illness narratives

Title

Sociocultural aspects of the medicalisation of infertility: a comparative reading of two illness narratives

Creator

James A.; Warrier M.G.; Benny A.T.

Description

This paper is a comparative reading of variations in the medicalisation of infertility caused by sociocultural aspects, in two illness narratives by patients: Elizabeth Katkins Conceivability (2018), a story of navigating a fertility industry with polycystic ovarian syndrome and antiphospholipid syndrome in America and Rohini Rajagopals Whats a Lemon Squeezer Doing in My Vagina (2021), a discussion from India of a growing awareness of medicalisation in treatment of unexplained infertility. For this purpose, it first charts scholarship on illness narratives and medicalisation, noting a historical association. Following this, it shows how infertility, a physiological symptom of reproductive incapacity or failure to show clinical pregnancy, is generally medicalised. This paper reads the texts as showing hitherto unaddressed sociocultural aspects of infertilitys medicalisation. At the same time, drawing from existing sociological and anthropological scholarship, it shows how a reading of sociocultural aspects in medicalised infertility nuances understanding of its medicalisation. This comparative reading attends to sociocultural values and norms within the texts, including pronatalism, fetal personhood, kinship organisation, purity/pollution, individual reliance, sacred duty and so forth. It draws from scholarship on embodiment, rhetorical strategies and the language of medicine. It also shows how a patients non-medicalised, affective history ofdeep sickness caused by the biographical disruption of infertility is not that of apoor historian. In laying out the particularisation of such sociocultural values and norms across America and India, medicalisations migration from its origins to the margins reveals subjectivised, stratified reproduction in infertility illness narratives. This paper is part of a turn in scholarship away from understanding the medicalisation of infertility as naturalised and decontextualised. Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024.

Source

Medical Humanities

Date

2024-01-01

Publisher

BMJ Publishing Group

Coverage

James A., Department of Psychology, Christ University, Karnataka, Bengaluru, India; Warrier M.G., Department of Psychology, Christ University, Karnataka, Bengaluru, India; Benny A.T., Department of English and Cultural Studies, Christ University, Karnataka, Bengaluru, India

Rights

Restricted Access

Relation

ISSN: 1468215X; CODEN: MHEUB

Format

Online

Language

English

Type

Article

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2024-012977

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85204172592&doi=10.1136%2fmedhum-2024-012977&partnerID=40&md5=dbc243ed5bebed70b2cbc4e864266ef3