Noisy Lives, Noisy Bodies

Exploring the Sensorial Embodiment of Class

in Anthropology in Action
Author:
Camilla Hoffmann Merrild Aarhus University Camilla.merrild@ph.au.dk

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Peter Vedsted Aarhus University p.vedsted@ph.au.dk

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Rikke Sand Andersen Aarhus University rsa@feap.dk

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Abstract

Social inequality in cancer survival is well known, and within public health promotion enhancing awareness of cancer symptoms is often promoted as a way to reduce social differences in stage of cancer at the time of diagnosis. In order to add to our knowledge of what may lie behind social inequalities in cancer survival encountered in many high-income countries, this article explores the situatedness of bodily sensations. Based on comparative ethnographic fieldwork, we argue that the socially and biologically informed body influences how people from lower social classes experience sensations. Overall, we point out how the sensorial is tied to the embodiment of the social situation in the sense that some bodies make more ‘noise’ than others. It follows that standardised approaches to improving early care seeking by increasing knowledge and awareness may overlook essential explanations of social differences in symptom appraisal.

Contributor Notes

Camilla Hoffmann Merrild is a post-doctoral researcher at the Danish Research Centre for Cancer Diagnosis in Primary Care (CaP), Research Unit for General Practice, Institute of Public Health, Aarhus University. She has done fieldwork among different social classes in Denmark, and her research centres on social differences in practices of health, illness and the body. She is currently working on a project focusing on socially depreived cancer patients and access to care. E-mail: Camilla.merrild@ph.au.dk

Peter Vedsted is the director of the Danish Research Centre for Cancer Diagnosis in Primary Care (CaP), Research Unit for General Practice, Institute of Public Health, Aarhus University and a Professor of Innovative Patient Pathways, Diagnostic Centre, Silkeborg Hospital, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University. His research revolves around cancer diagnostics and he has published extensively on the subject. E-mail: p.vedsted@ph.au.dk

Rikke Sand Andersen is an Associate Professor at the Danish Research Centre for Cancer Diagnosis in Primary Care (CaP), Research Unit for General Practice, Institute of Public Health and Institute of Culture and Society, Anthropology, Aarhus University. Her work is on contemporary forms of cancer disease control and her current writings are on subjects such as the entanglements of science and bureaucracy in healthcare, and misfits between biomedical ‘truth-claims’ and lived experience. E-mail: rsa@feap.dk

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