C Greco
Biographic Data
| ID | 50257 |
|---|---|
| NAME | C Greco |
| GIVEN NAMES | C |
| FAMILY NAME | Greco |
| SIGNATURE | GRECO C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Manchester |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7909-2451 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 18 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Knowing or not knowing: The practical and moral complexity of diagnostic-seeking pathways in situations of medical uncertainty
In this paper, we discuss the practical and moral complexities of diagnostic-seeking pathways for three uncertain medical conditions: fibromyalgia, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and long COVID. We analyse qualitative data collected in the UK between 2023 and 2025, comprising in-depth interviews with medical professionals, researchers, and patients, as well as documentary sources. Drawing on the anthropology and soci…
La santé: Une Affaire Sociale Ou Sociétale
Introduction: Conducting Ethnography Among White Coats
Woman in the brain, or the fraught relationship between feminism and mental health
This article explores the complicated relationship between feminism and women's mental health. I discuss the differences and convergences between neurodiversity and mental health and how feminist theory has approached these topics. While contrasting the pathologisation that mental health disciplines can apply to women, feminism has often reduced mental health conditions to mere manifestations of patriarchy. Using autism as a prism, I propose that…
Coexisting cancer regimes: Transformations of breast and lung cancer in the United Kingdom
Using in-depth interviews with medical professionals working in the UK, I explore the coexistence of two different cancer regimes in which the different innovations for breast and lung cancer can be located. Breast cancer treatment has seen a protracted series of significant innovations in the context of an emphasis on screening that coexists with a segmentation in subtypes that has allowed targeted therapies for most patients. Lung cancer has al…
Anthropology of new chronicities: Illness experiences under the promise of medical innovation as long-term treatment
In the introduction to the special issue, Greco and Graber discuss the concept of chronicity and the ways it is used in the contributions to the special issue. Historians have shown that the concept of chronic disease has its origins in policy and has always been fluid and vague; however, the classic literature in sociology and nursing has focused on modelling the evolution of chronic disease rather than on examining the concept itself. In the in…
The nebula of chronicity: Dealing with metastatic breast cancer in the UK
In this article, I explore how the concept of chronicity is mobilised by different actors in reference to metastatic breast cancer (MBC) and the transformation of the condition as a consequence of medical innovations. I do so by using data collected in the UK between 2017 and 2019 through in-depth interviews with medical professionals involved in the treatment of MBC and with patients living with MBC. I show how chronicity appears as a multidimen…
The Uncertain Presence: Experiences of Living with Metastatic Breast Cancer
Drawing from interviews with women with metastatic breast cancer in the UK and France, in this article I analyze uncertainties linked to this condition. In particular, I show how the impossibility of foreseeing the evolution of the condition, also as an indirect consequence of medical innovation, initiates an irreparable disruption of life after diagnosis. I further show how the lives of the patients are not only limited by the illness, but also …
Bilan d’une première décennie
Afin que le lectorat et les collègues ayant contribué à la revue Anthropologie & Santé saisissent mieux son identité et ses valeurs, ce texte rappelle les raisons qui ont conduit un collectif de chercheur.e.s à créer la revue en 2010, ainsi que les décisions prises concernant la ligne éditoriale, le support d’édition et la politique de diffusion. Il décrit en détail ses procédures d’évaluation, la chaîne de son travail éditorial et son fonctionne…
Taking sides
This think piece argues for a 'partisan anthropology'. Building on lessons learned through my research about the practices of postmastectomy breast reconstruction in France and Italy, I reflect on the role of the researcher in fieldwork. In my own research, I acted as neither a militant nor an activist in the field, that is, I did not actively participate in the initiatives I observed. However, in the analysis stage, I decided to side with the pa…
Too Much Information, Too Little Power: The Persistence of Asymmetries in Doctor-Patient Relationships
Years ago, during an appointment with a breast surgeon in Southern Italy, while I was trying to explain my symptoms, he interrupted me with a wave of the hand and said, “That’s not relevant,” then
Moving for Cures: Breast Cancer and Mobility in Italy
I combine the theoretical tools of medical anthropology and the framework of mobility studies to explore the intranational movements of women with breast cancer from Southern and Northern Italy. Differences include patients' technical and moral evaluations of doctors, that influence the patients' definitions of cure and illness experiences through their mobility and immobility. These (im)mobilities are, in turn, linked to the material and symboli…
Vivre avec un corps asymétrique. Mastectomie, résistances et réappropriation
Après une ablation du sein suite à un cancer, la majorité des patientes n’effectuent pas de reconstruction chirurgicale et vivent avec un seul ou sans sein. Cet article vise à comparer les stratégies de résistance et de réappropriation de deux associations et celles de patientes non engagées dans une association. Une association promeut l’acceptation sociale de l’asymétrie, l’autre souligne l’importance de l’acceptation personnelle de la nouvelle…
Shining a light on the grey zones of gender construction: Breast surgery in France and Italy
This article analyses the areas of overlap between cosmetic surgery and reconstructive surgery, using the examples of both female and male breast surgery, and shows that these areas of overlap are sites of the construction of gendered bodies. The data are drawn from two pieces of research: the first based on 17 in-depth interviews with Italian cosmetic surgeons and the second based on 99 interviews with breast cancer patients and medical oncologi…
Blaming the southern victim: Cancer and the Italian 'Southern Question' in Terra dei fuochi and Taranto
In this article, the author addresses two critical environmental situations in southern Italy: the Terra dei fuochi (Land of fires) near Naples, characterized by a history of illegal disposal of toxic waste, and Taranto, where the Ilva steel plants have a record of exceeding the legal emission limits for several pollutants. Despite a recognition of these situations, public political discourse in Italy still tends to link the higher than average i…
The Poly Implant Prothèse breast prostheses scandal: Embodied risk and social suffering
Chikako Takeshita, The Global Biopolitics of the IUD. How Science Constructs Contraceptive Users and Women’s Bodies: Cambridge (Mass.), The MIT Press, 2011, 254 p
Cette étude de Chikako Takeshita détaille les différents usages du DIU (dispositif intra-utérin ou stérilet) depuis sa création dans les années 1960 jusqu’à nos jours. L’analyse s’appuie sur plusieurs sources : la littérature scientifique médicale, la recherche d’archives et l’examen des outils de communication utilisés par les firmes pharmaceutiques. Le livre se compose de six chapitres au fil desquels la chercheuse analyse l’histoire du DIU en …
Moving for Cures: Breast Cancer and Mobility in Italy
I combine the theoretical tools of medical anthropology and the framework of mobility studies to explore the intranational movements of women with breast cancer from Southern and Northern Italy. Differences include patients' technical and moral evaluations of doctors, that influence the patients' definitions of cure and illness experiences through their mobility and immobility. These (im)mobilities are, in turn, linked to the material and symboli…
Shining a light on the grey zones of gender construction: Breast surgery in France and Italy
This article analyses the areas of overlap between cosmetic surgery and reconstructive surgery, using the examples of both female and male breast surgery, and shows that these areas of overlap are sites of the construction of gendered bodies. The data are drawn from two pieces of research: the first based on 17 in-depth interviews with Italian cosmetic surgeons and the second based on 99 interviews with breast cancer patients and medical oncologi…
The Uncertain Presence: Experiences of Living with Metastatic Breast Cancer
Drawing from interviews with women with metastatic breast cancer in the UK and France, in this article I analyze uncertainties linked to this condition. In particular, I show how the impossibility of foreseeing the evolution of the condition, also as an indirect consequence of medical innovation, initiates an irreparable disruption of life after diagnosis. I further show how the lives of the patients are not only limited by the illness, but also …
Too Much Information, Too Little Power: The Persistence of Asymmetries in Doctor-Patient Relationships
Years ago, during an appointment with a breast surgeon in Southern Italy, while I was trying to explain my symptoms, he interrupted me with a wave of the hand and said, “That’s not relevant,” then
Vivre avec un corps asymétrique. Mastectomie, résistances et réappropriation
Après une ablation du sein suite à un cancer, la majorité des patientes n’effectuent pas de reconstruction chirurgicale et vivent avec un seul ou sans sein. Cet article vise à comparer les stratégies de résistance et de réappropriation de deux associations et celles de patientes non engagées dans une association. Une association promeut l’acceptation sociale de l’asymétrie, l’autre souligne l’importance de l’acceptation personnelle de la nouvelle…
Chikako Takeshita, The Global Biopolitics of the IUD. How Science Constructs Contraceptive Users and Women’s Bodies: Cambridge (Mass.), The MIT Press, 2011, 254 p
Cette étude de Chikako Takeshita détaille les différents usages du DIU (dispositif intra-utérin ou stérilet) depuis sa création dans les années 1960 jusqu’à nos jours. L’analyse s’appuie sur plusieurs sources : la littérature scientifique médicale, la recherche d’archives et l’examen des outils de communication utilisés par les firmes pharmaceutiques. Le livre se compose de six chapitres au fil desquels la chercheuse analyse l’histoire du DIU en …
Chikako Takeshita, The Global Biopolitics of the IUD. How Science Constructs Contraceptive Users and Women’s Bodies: Cambridge (Mass.), The MIT Press, 2011, 254 p
Cette étude de Chikako Takeshita détaille les différents usages du DIU (dispositif intra-utérin ou stérilet) depuis sa création dans les années 1960 jusqu’à nos jours. L’analyse s’appuie sur plusieurs sources : la littérature scientifique médicale, la recherche d’archives et l’examen des outils de communication utilisés par les firmes pharmaceutiques. Le livre se compose de six chapitres au fil desquels la chercheuse analyse l’histoire du DIU en …
The Poly Implant Prothèse breast prostheses scandal: Embodied risk and social suffering
Vivre avec un corps asymétrique. Mastectomie, résistances et réappropriation
Après une ablation du sein suite à un cancer, la majorité des patientes n’effectuent pas de reconstruction chirurgicale et vivent avec un seul ou sans sein. Cet article vise à comparer les stratégies de résistance et de réappropriation de deux associations et celles de patientes non engagées dans une association. Une association promeut l’acceptation sociale de l’asymétrie, l’autre souligne l’importance de l’acceptation personnelle de la nouvelle…
Shining a light on the grey zones of gender construction: Breast surgery in France and Italy
This article analyses the areas of overlap between cosmetic surgery and reconstructive surgery, using the examples of both female and male breast surgery, and shows that these areas of overlap are sites of the construction of gendered bodies. The data are drawn from two pieces of research: the first based on 17 in-depth interviews with Italian cosmetic surgeons and the second based on 99 interviews with breast cancer patients and medical oncologi…
Blaming the southern victim: Cancer and the Italian 'Southern Question' in Terra dei fuochi and Taranto
In this article, the author addresses two critical environmental situations in southern Italy: the Terra dei fuochi (Land of fires) near Naples, characterized by a history of illegal disposal of toxic waste, and Taranto, where the Ilva steel plants have a record of exceeding the legal emission limits for several pollutants. Despite a recognition of these situations, public political discourse in Italy still tends to link the higher than average i…
Moving for Cures: Breast Cancer and Mobility in Italy
I combine the theoretical tools of medical anthropology and the framework of mobility studies to explore the intranational movements of women with breast cancer from Southern and Northern Italy. Differences include patients' technical and moral evaluations of doctors, that influence the patients' definitions of cure and illness experiences through their mobility and immobility. These (im)mobilities are, in turn, linked to the material and symboli…
Bilan d’une première décennie
Afin que le lectorat et les collègues ayant contribué à la revue Anthropologie & Santé saisissent mieux son identité et ses valeurs, ce texte rappelle les raisons qui ont conduit un collectif de chercheur.e.s à créer la revue en 2010, ainsi que les décisions prises concernant la ligne éditoriale, le support d’édition et la politique de diffusion. Il décrit en détail ses procédures d’évaluation, la chaîne de son travail éditorial et son fonctionne…
Taking sides
This think piece argues for a 'partisan anthropology'. Building on lessons learned through my research about the practices of postmastectomy breast reconstruction in France and Italy, I reflect on the role of the researcher in fieldwork. In my own research, I acted as neither a militant nor an activist in the field, that is, I did not actively participate in the initiatives I observed. However, in the analysis stage, I decided to side with the pa…
Too Much Information, Too Little Power: The Persistence of Asymmetries in Doctor-Patient Relationships
Years ago, during an appointment with a breast surgeon in Southern Italy, while I was trying to explain my symptoms, he interrupted me with a wave of the hand and said, “That’s not relevant,” then
Anthropology of new chronicities: Illness experiences under the promise of medical innovation as long-term treatment
In the introduction to the special issue, Greco and Graber discuss the concept of chronicity and the ways it is used in the contributions to the special issue. Historians have shown that the concept of chronic disease has its origins in policy and has always been fluid and vague; however, the classic literature in sociology and nursing has focused on modelling the evolution of chronic disease rather than on examining the concept itself. In the in…
The nebula of chronicity: Dealing with metastatic breast cancer in the UK
In this article, I explore how the concept of chronicity is mobilised by different actors in reference to metastatic breast cancer (MBC) and the transformation of the condition as a consequence of medical innovations. I do so by using data collected in the UK between 2017 and 2019 through in-depth interviews with medical professionals involved in the treatment of MBC and with patients living with MBC. I show how chronicity appears as a multidimen…
The Uncertain Presence: Experiences of Living with Metastatic Breast Cancer
Drawing from interviews with women with metastatic breast cancer in the UK and France, in this article I analyze uncertainties linked to this condition. In particular, I show how the impossibility of foreseeing the evolution of the condition, also as an indirect consequence of medical innovation, initiates an irreparable disruption of life after diagnosis. I further show how the lives of the patients are not only limited by the illness, but also …
Introduction: Conducting Ethnography Among White Coats
Woman in the brain, or the fraught relationship between feminism and mental health
This article explores the complicated relationship between feminism and women's mental health. I discuss the differences and convergences between neurodiversity and mental health and how feminist theory has approached these topics. While contrasting the pathologisation that mental health disciplines can apply to women, feminism has often reduced mental health conditions to mere manifestations of patriarchy. Using autism as a prism, I propose that…
Coexisting cancer regimes: Transformations of breast and lung cancer in the United Kingdom
Using in-depth interviews with medical professionals working in the UK, I explore the coexistence of two different cancer regimes in which the different innovations for breast and lung cancer can be located. Breast cancer treatment has seen a protracted series of significant innovations in the context of an emphasis on screening that coexists with a segmentation in subtypes that has allowed targeted therapies for most patients. Lung cancer has al…
La santé: Une Affaire Sociale Ou Sociétale
Knowing or not knowing: The practical and moral complexity of diagnostic-seeking pathways in situations of medical uncertainty
In this paper, we discuss the practical and moral complexities of diagnostic-seeking pathways for three uncertain medical conditions: fibromyalgia, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and long COVID. We analyse qualitative data collected in the UK between 2023 and 2025, comprising in-depth interviews with medical professionals, researchers, and patients, as well as documentary sources. Drawing on the anthropology and soci…
Medicine (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Breast cancer (5 works) · Cancer (5 works) · History (4 works) · Internal Medicine (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Gender Studies (3 works)