Biomedicalization

The rise of Western scientific medicine fully established the medical sector of the U.S. political economy by the end of the Second World War, the first “social transformation of American medicine.” Then, in an ongoing process called medicalization, the jurisdiction of medicine began expanding, redefining certain areas once deemed moral, social, or legal problems (such as alcoholism, drug addiction, and obesity) as medical problems. The editors of this important collection argue that since the mid-1980s, dramatic, and especially technoscientific, changes in the constitution, organization, and practices of contemporary biomedicine have coalesced into biomedicalization, the second major transformation of American medicine. This volume offers in-depth analyses and case studies along with the groundbreaking essay in which the editors first elaborated their theory of biomedicalization.Contributors. Natalie Boero, Adele E. Clarke, Jennifer R. Fishman, Jennifer Ruth Fosket, Kelly Joyce, Jonathan Kahn, Laura Mamo, Jackie Orr, Elianne Riska, Janet K. Shim, Sara Shostak

“This is an important book for historians. . . . [I]ts importance lies with extending the scholarship that has now coalesced around the belief that we have entered a new epochal order in which the epistemic grounds for life itself have changed. . . . [A] timely, informative, engaging, and above all, heuristic achievement. It may be that we are still too much in the forest of the new epochal order to see the trees, but Biomedicalization provides a significant empirical and theoretical clearing.” - Roger Cooter, Medical History, “In tracing the changing contours of biomedicine, this volume charts new connections between biopower, biopolitics, and biocapital, and it documents the emergence of new conditions, diagnostics, and treatments. This book will be most useful for scholars of medicine, health, the body, science, and technology. The theoretical framework is both systematic and clearly articulated, and it should prove provocative for those doing research in these areas. While some of the empirical case studies are more in conversation with the conceptual apparatus of biomedicalization than others, several are quite engaging and would make nice additions to undergraduate and graduate courses in these areas.” - Rene Almeling, American Journal of Sociology, “. . . [T]here is much to be gained from this volume. For academics and researchers entering the area, the volume serves as a useful introduction to biomedicalisation’s diverse expressions and implications. And because the arguments presented are sophisticated and the cases richly documented, thevolume will be an important resource for those already engaged with social theory and biomedicine.” - Mark Davis, Culture, Health, and Sexuality, “The anthology . . . offers, from my point of view, a fundamental contribution and an innovative theoretical framework for understanding not only the relation between medicine and society, but also the study of the technoscientific practices tout court.” - Stefano Crabu, Technoscienzia, “Biomedicalization comprehensively articulates the 21st century technoscientific turn in American medicine and brings key concepts in medical sociology to bear on health and medicine as well as science, technology, sexuality, race, gender and the body. I highly recommend it for scholars in these areas.” - Gayle A. Sulik, Sociology of Health and Illness

Adele E. Clarke is Professor of Sociology and History of Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.Laura Mamo is Associate Professor at the Health Equity Institute for Research, Practice, and Policy at San Francisco State University.Jennifer Ruth Fosket is a principal and founder of Social Green, where she does research and writes on the intersections of health, the built environment, and sustainability.Jennifer R. Fishman is Assistant Professor in the Social Studies of Medicine Department at McGill University.Janet K. Shim is Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.