„Geschlechtsbilder und Präventionskonzepte kardiovaskulärer Erkrankungen in Deutschland, 1949-2000“

Gegenstand der Untersuchung ist die medizinhistorische Kontextualisierung des Einflusses der Kategorie Geschlecht auf Präventionskampagnen koronarer Herzkrankheiten im deutsch-deutschen Vergleich von 1949-2000. Das Projekt geht mit Hilfe eines durch die Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung informierten, medizinhistorischen Ansatzes der Frage nach, warum eine primär auf den männlichen Körper zugeschnittene Prävention und Therapie der Herzkreislauferkrankungen erfolgte, obschon der weibliche Körper in der Medizin zentraler Gegenstand von Strategien der Prävention ist. Durch eine synchrone Analyse der Zuschreibungen von Geschlecht auf ein geschlechtsneutrales Organ (Herz) wird die Konzeption, Repräsentation und Wissensproduktion von Körpern in drei miteinander in Beziehung stehenden Ebenen: der medizinischen, der public health, und der populären Präventionskonzeption untersucht. Der Untersuchungszeitraum des Projekts beinhaltet eine komparative Analyse der spezifischen Körper- und Geschlechtsbilder in den Präventionskampagnen aus beiden deutschen Staaten. Hieraus sollen historische Erklärungen für das aktuelle Missverhältnis zwischen dem Selbstverständnis der Personen zu Erkrankungsrisiken und denen der Präventionskampagnen gefunden werden. Die Ergebnisse sollen praxisorientierte Hinweise für die Konzeption zukünftiger Programme zur effektiven Gesundheitsförderung geben.

(Laufzeit: 2011 - 2014)

DFG gefördert

Biosocialities from a gendered perspective: health promotion, masculinity and prostate cancer self-help groups

The project, located within the anthropology of knowledge, researches the way in which men apply strategies of prevention, translate medical knowledge into self knowledge and embody the concept of risk. Men's concept of their own body and health promotion has been described as a phenomenon of "non-self-care" and risk taking, Both concepts are based upon an idealised male role and male body, and have been identified as lying underneath men's apparent lack of health information seeking and understanding of preventative campaigns. Prostate cancer, one of the most often diagnosed cancer in elderly men in Germany, remains despite recent preventative campaigns, a taboo topic. The advent of the soaring numbers of prostate cancer self-help groups in Germany, however, seems to run against the described ideal.

The project methodologically combines recent theoretical thinking in the fields of medical anthropology, gender and men's studies with an ethnography of health promotion. First, it draws upon the highly influential concepts of "biosocialities" (Novas, Rose 2000; Rose 2007) and "practices of self" (Foucault 1988) to unravel the practices by which men within prostate cancer self-help groups apply health self management and embody concepts of risk; secondly, it critically engages with recent feminist and men's studies literature to re-evaluate the impact of gender on the habitus on and understanding of prostate cancer and prevention. Stressing the importance of the specific historical, cultural and social contexts of current prostate cancer prevention programmes, the project will deal with the question of normativity of gendered bodies, and the still under researched interception of the categories of aging, gender and the concept of risk. The outcome of this research will be an important contribution to the identification and formulation of acceptable criteria for health promotion and prevention programmes of prostate cancer. (Funding proposal in preparation).

A historical ontology of male infertility: concepts, categories, practices in medicine

The concept of the "unhealthy" male reproductive body and the medical and technological practices by which to interfere and treat reproductive pathologies abound in today's science (and popular) press, yet their historical dimensions are still largely unexplored. Taking the few existing hisotrical studies on the (medical) narrations of the infertility (before or together with "modern" technological development) as a backdrop, the genealogical project explores the way in which the male reproductive body became an object of scientific (medical) study within the wider medical, social and economic context of reproduction over the course of the late nineteenth and twentieth century Germany. Drawing upon Ian Hacking's concept of an historical ontology, the project combines an analysis of men's "unhealthy" reproductive bodies emerging as an "epistemic thing" (Knorr Cetina), and as an object prone to growing medical intervention, both of which possibly changing what it meant to be an infertile man. It will investigate the historical dimensions of medical knowledge of male reproductive bodies (conceptualisation of infertility and discipline building), the categories defined (standardisation and classifications of infertile bodies), and the practices applied (surgery, pharmacology and medical technology). It is envisioned that the project will contribute to a more nuanced gendered understanding of the history of reproduction.

Funding proposal in preparation.

(Network: Economies of reproduction, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)

Aging Men: Masculinities and Modern Medicine Jointly edited by Antje Kampf, Barbara Marshall and Alan Petersen

The proposed anthology is a collection about the multiple socio- historical contexts surrounding men´s aging bodies in modern medicine in global perspective. The collection will be the first of its kind to explore the interrelated aspects of aging masculinities and biomedicine, offering a multidisciplinary dialogue between sociology of health and illness, anthropology of the body and gender studies. Foregrounding material practices of aging men´s bodies will yield new ways of understanding knowledge production and subjectivity of aging processes. The collection allows for a timely and reconsideration if the conceptualisation of aging men within the recent explosion of science studies in men´s health and biotechnologies including anti- aging perspectives. The intention is to steer current thinking about masculinities beyond conceptualising inherited power status and hegemony to include current feminist inspired scholarship on the relational processes and practices of materiality and embodiment of masculinities. Reflecting current most important thoughts on the interplay of aging, masculinities and modern medicine, it will query the permeability and instability of definitions of aging and gender boundaries within current politics of health and aging. 

At the intersection of historical and contemporary scholarship, the chapters in this collection investigate both healthy and diseased states of aging men in medical practices- Bridging theoretical with empirical conceptualisations, the collection discusses these issues in three principal parts: Part One "Rethinking- Concepts" focuses on the historical epistemology of aging, bodies and masculinity and the way in which social science perspectives have theorised the aging body and gender. Part Two "Materialities- Practices and Processes" explores  material practices and processes by which biotechnology, medical assemblages and men´s aging bodies produce and are produced, relate to, negotiate and define health and illness. Part Three "Identities- Ontologies" traces aging experience and individual life impacting upon men´s roles and identity in biomedical assemblages, which in turn affects societal systems.

Topics Include:

• Historical Epistemology of Aging
• Classifying Aging Bodies
• Functionality/ Medicalisation: Defining Normative Bodies
• Theorizing Stage of Life Third- Fourth Age/ Impairment theory
• Cartographies/ Mapping Aging Bodies
• Clinical Trials/ Health Technology
• Anti- aging/ Hybrid Bodies/ Future Bodies
• Men´s emotion and aging
• Knowledge systems
• Care Work