Old and New Actors and Phenomena in the Three-M Processes of Life and Society: Medicalization, Moralization and Misinformation

A special issue of Societies (ISSN 2075-4698).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 June 2022) | Viewed by 28815

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Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor
1. Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia, Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Avenida das Forças Armadas, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal
2. Instituto de Saúde Ambiental (ISAMB), Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, 1649-028 Lisboa, Portugal
Interests: health inequalities; social determinants of health; sexual and reproductive health and rights; life-course and well-being; social justice
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E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
ISCTE - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal
Interests: demography; sociology of population; sociology of birth and motherhood
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last 50 years, peoples’ lives and health have been increasingly defined and influenced across the life course and across levels of influence by different processes of medicalization and social control. Although medicalization is not a new concept, new actors, besides medical professionals and patients, and new phenomena, such as consumerism and human enhancement, influence the processes of transformation of human conditions into medical problems today.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of restrictions including lockdowns, quarantines, and sanitary cordons have been implemented in numerous countries and territories around the world in a state of total medicalization of the different spheres of everyday life: family, friends, education, work, health, recreation, etc. The pandemic also stressed the growing disparities in societies around the world, the making of new moral discourses around health, illness and wellness, and the impact of health misinformation.

Research regarding the range of social, cultural, and structural factors influencing the way those processes differently impact the health and wellbeing of individuals within an intersectional approach to gender, age, class, race/ethnicity, sexuality, (dis)ability, religion, and spirituality is needed. Papers are expected to contribute with social justice and equity-focused perspectives.

We welcome original articles and review articles based on comprehensive literature reviews from different academic disciplines that engage issues of medicalization, moralization, and misinformation of life and society, such as sociology, gender theory, anthropology, and psychology, based on theoretical analysis and/or empirical studies with different methodological approaches, including arts-based research and participatory methods. We also invite presentations that discuss the wide variety of ethical issues that arise from medicalization processes in areas ranging from medical research conduct to reproductive health or end-of-life care.

Dr. Violeta Alarcão
Dr. Sónia Cardoso Pintassilgo
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • medicalization
  • social control
  • social norms
  • gender norms
  • health education
  • health literacy

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Published Papers (8 papers)

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Editorial

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4 pages, 210 KiB  
Editorial
Old and New Actors and Phenomena in the Three-M Processes of Life and Society: Medicalization, Moralization and Misinformation
by Violeta Alarcão and Sónia Pintassilgo
Societies 2023, 13(1), 17; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13010017 - 12 Jan 2023
Viewed by 1832
Abstract
Medicalization has been a key concept in the field of the sociology of health and illness over the past 50 years, capturing the expanding social control of everyday life by medical experts [...] Full article

Research

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16 pages, 308 KiB  
Article
“Not Storing the Samples It’s Certainly Not a Good Service for Patients”: Constructing the Biobank as a Health Place
by Brígida Riso
Societies 2022, 12(4), 113; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc12040113 - 6 Aug 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1856
Abstract
Biobanks have been established from the beginning of the millennium as relevant infrastructures to support biomedical research. These repositories have also transformed the paradigm of collecting and storing samples and associated clinical data, moving these practices from the healthcare services and research laboratories [...] Read more.
Biobanks have been established from the beginning of the millennium as relevant infrastructures to support biomedical research. These repositories have also transformed the paradigm of collecting and storing samples and associated clinical data, moving these practices from the healthcare services and research laboratories to dedicated services. In Portugal, the establishment of biobanks is happening in the absence of a specific legal framework, turning it difficult to fully understand the scope of their action. This ethnographic research explored how establishing a biobank challenges the dynamics between healthcare and biomedical research. The ethnography intended to follow the path of biological samples from the hospital, where they were collected, to the biobank in a research institute, where they were stored. Findings suggest that although the nature of the biobank’s technical work seemed to inscribe it as a research-oriented setting, the biobank’s daily work was performed through symbolic action in the logic of care. Biobank staff constantly recalled the human nature of the samples, and they built complex illness narratives of each sample, promoting a connection with the absent donor. These practices were crucial to constructing the biobank as a health place, one that was designed to be life-saving in the near future. Full article
15 pages, 319 KiB  
Article
“Mix of Races, Bad Uterus”: Obstetric Violence in the Experiences of Afro-Brazilian Migrants in Portugal
by Catarina Barata
Societies 2022, 12(3), 78; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc12030078 - 6 May 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3706
Abstract
In this article, I address the issues of obstetric violence and racism in the Portuguese setting of obstetric care. Based on data collected through interviews and participatory artistic creation, I analyze the perception of three Afro-Brazilian migrants about their perinatal experiences of obstetric [...] Read more.
In this article, I address the issues of obstetric violence and racism in the Portuguese setting of obstetric care. Based on data collected through interviews and participatory artistic creation, I analyze the perception of three Afro-Brazilian migrants about their perinatal experiences of obstetric care in the Portuguese public sector between 2013 and 2019. These women’s experiences have much in common with experiences of obstetric violence as narrated by Portuguese, non-racialized women. Despite this, certain aspects of their experience are related to their particular identification as Brazilian, migrant, and Black, such as xenophobic discrimination and their placement in systems of stratified reproduction, including a supposed tendency for birth by caesarean section, as well as self-policing behaviors because of the stereotype of Brazilian women as flirty. I consider a range of manifestations of obstetric violence and racism, from more overt forms to more covert ones, to analyze how, in a country where racism and obstetric violence are only slowly beginning to be recognized as the norm, multiple discriminations intersect and have an impact on the experiences of women of their bodies in pregnancy, birth, and postpartum, including breastfeeding. Full article
20 pages, 324 KiB  
Article
‘Focusing and Unfocusing’—Cognitive, Evaluative, and Emotional Dynamics in the Relationship with Human Embryos among ART Beneficiaries
by Luís Gouveia and Catarina Delaunay
Societies 2022, 12(1), 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc12010007 - 5 Jan 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2193
Abstract
This article uses data gathered from a study conducted in Portugal to examine the (plural and composite) conceptions that doctors, embryologists, and beneficiaries of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) have of the in vitro human embryo. Taking the sociology of engagements, developed by [...] Read more.
This article uses data gathered from a study conducted in Portugal to examine the (plural and composite) conceptions that doctors, embryologists, and beneficiaries of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) have of the in vitro human embryo. Taking the sociology of engagements, developed by Thévenot, as its theoretical lens, the article draws on a total of 69 interviews with ART patients to analyse the plurality of fluid meanings produced about this biological entity, whose status is neither static nor universal. ART beneficiaries are likely to produce plural conceptions of the lab-generated embryo within the framework of different regimes of engagement, understood as cognitive and evaluative formats. These various pragmatic regimes, in turn, entail distinct emotional investments. When speaking about their relationship with embryos, beneficiaries therefore express plural emotional experiences, which are articulated using terms such as affection, love, detachment, loss, frustration, hope, mourning, and anguish. Using the theoretical framework of the sociology of engagements, we propose an approach that enables us to produce a detailed record of the connections between the cognitive, evaluative, and emotional dimensions in beneficiaries’ relationship with—and decision-making processes about—the embryos, accounting for the plasticity of emotional states linked to the (re)configuration of attributed meanings. Full article
16 pages, 265 KiB  
Article
Because You’re Worth It! The Medicalization and Moralization of Aesthetics in Aging Women
by Chiara Pussetti
Societies 2021, 11(3), 97; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc11030097 - 12 Aug 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 5110
Abstract
In this article—based on the fieldwork I conducted in Lisbon (Portugal) between 2018 and 2021, employing in-depth ethnography and self-ethnography—I describe the experience of the medicalization and moralization of beauty in Portuguese women aged 45–65 years. I examine the ways in which practitioners [...] Read more.
In this article—based on the fieldwork I conducted in Lisbon (Portugal) between 2018 and 2021, employing in-depth ethnography and self-ethnography—I describe the experience of the medicalization and moralization of beauty in Portuguese women aged 45–65 years. I examine the ways in which practitioners inscribe their expert knowledge on their patients’ bodies, stigmatizing the marks of time and proposing medical treatments and surgeries to “repair” and “correct” them. Beauty and youth are symbolically constructed in medical discourse as visual markers of health, an adequate lifestyle, a strong character and good personal choices (such as not smoking, and a healthy diet and exercise habits). What beauty means within the discourse of anti-aging and therapeutic rejuvenation is increasingly connected to an ideal gender performance of normative, white, middle-class, heterosexual femininity that dismisses structural determinants. The fantasy of eternal youth, linked to a neoliberal ideology of limitless enhancement and individual responsibility, is firmly entrenched in moralizing definitions of aesthetics and gender norms. Finally, my article highlights the ways in which the women I interviewed do not always passively accept the discourse of the devaluation of the ageing body, defining femininity and ageing in their own terms by creating personal variants of the hegemonic normative discourses on beauty and successful ageing. Full article

Review

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21 pages, 615 KiB  
Review
Attitudes and Practices towards HPV Vaccination and Its Social Processes in Europe: An Equity-Focused Scoping Review
by Violeta Alarcão and Bilyana Zdravkova
Societies 2022, 12(5), 131; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc12050131 - 18 Sep 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3862
Abstract
The sociological understanding of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination offers the possibility to understand society better as the processes that shape health beliefs and influence HPV vaccine decisions relate to gender, power, and identity. This research aimed to locate, select, and critically assess [...] Read more.
The sociological understanding of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination offers the possibility to understand society better as the processes that shape health beliefs and influence HPV vaccine decisions relate to gender, power, and identity. This research aimed to locate, select, and critically assess scientific evidence regarding the attitudes and practices towards HPV vaccination and its social processes with a focus on health equity. A scoping review following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) and the recommendations made by the Joanna Briggs Institute was undertaken. Medline and Scopus were searched from their start date until December 2021. The review followed the Population/Concept/Context (PCC) inclusion criteria: Population = General population, adults and adolescents, Concept = Empirical data on determinants of HPV vaccination, Context= Studies on attitudes and practices towards HPV vaccination and its social processes with a focus on gender, class, and ethnic/racial inequalities. Of the 235 selected articles, 28 were from European countries and were the focus of this review, with special attention to socio-economic determinants in HPV vaccine hesitancy in Europe, a region increasingly affected by vaccination public distrust and criticism. Barriers and facilitators of HPV vaccine uptake and determinants of immunization were identified. Given the emphasis on health equity, these data are relevant to strengthening vaccination programs to promote vaccination for all people. Full article
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14 pages, 262 KiB  
Concept Paper
Medicalization of Sexuality and Trans Situations: Evolutions and Transformations
by Alain Giami
Societies 2023, 13(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13010003 - 22 Dec 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4055
Abstract
This article explores the evolution of the definition and the process of medicalization of sexuality during the second half of the 20th century. After a review and discussion of the notion of medicalization, the application of this notion to a few examples is [...] Read more.
This article explores the evolution of the definition and the process of medicalization of sexuality during the second half of the 20th century. After a review and discussion of the notion of medicalization, the application of this notion to a few examples is discussed, including the emergence of sexuality, the demedicalization of homosexuality, the treatment of “sexual disorders”, the prevention of HIV infection, and the gender-affirmation pathways for transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people. The analysis of these situations—in the light of the notion of medicalization—allows us to better understand the multiple facets of this notion. In particular, we observe processes of medicalization and demedicalization, depathologization, and pharmacologization. The notion of medicalization of sexuality appears here as a useful concept for understanding the conceptualization and treatment of diversities in the field of sexuality and gender. Full article
51 pages, 530 KiB  
Concept Paper
A New Time of Reckoning, a Time for New Reckoning: Views on Health and Society, Tensions between Medicine and the Social Sciences, and the Process of Medicalization
by Diogo Silva da Cunha and Hélder Raposo
Societies 2022, 12(4), 119; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc12040119 - 13 Aug 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4471
Abstract
This article seeks to capture variations and tensions in the relationships between the health–illness–medicine complex and society. It presents several theoretical reconstructions, established theses and arguments are reassessed and criticized, known perspectives are realigned according to a new theorizing narrative, and some new [...] Read more.
This article seeks to capture variations and tensions in the relationships between the health–illness–medicine complex and society. It presents several theoretical reconstructions, established theses and arguments are reassessed and criticized, known perspectives are realigned according to a new theorizing narrative, and some new notions are proposed. In the first part, we argue that relations between the medical complex and society are neither formal–abstract nor historically necessary. In the second part, we take the concept of medicalization and the development of medicalization critique as an important example of the difficult coalescence between health and society, but also as an alternative to guide the treatment of these relationships. Returning to the medicalization studies, we suggest a new synthesis, reconceptualizing it as a set of modalities, including medical imperialism. In the third part, we endorse replacing a profession-based approach to medicalization with a knowledge-based approach. However, we argue that such an approach should include varieties of sociological knowledge. In this context, we propose an enlarged knowledge-based orientation for standardizing the relationships between the health–illness–medicine complex and society. Full article
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