Foreskin and the molecular politics of risk
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 14684445 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Aaron T Norton (Northwestern University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 655-680 |
| Publication date | 2017-10-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Studies of Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0306-3127 • E-ISSN: 1460-3659 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0306312717707360 |
| PMID | 28639539 |
| OpenAlex | W2654428881 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 87 |
In this paper, I examine disputes over recent claims that male circumcision reduces HIV risk to suggest a complicated relationship between risk individualization and categorization. Whereas randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted in sub-Saharan Africa appear to have provided key evidence for the World Health Organization’s endorsement of male circumcision as an HIV prevention strategy, RCTs alone did not provide evidence for the underlying causal mechanism. For that, medical authorities have turned to histo-immunological studies of the foreskin’s biomolecular vulnerability to HIV, thus molecularizing risk. Some actors used these studies both as a way of shoring up results of RCTs conducted in sub-Saharan Africa and as an important rationale in arguments for making neonatal circumcision more widely available. Others, however, resisted this move to generalize the RCT results to other parts of the world, citing both contextual differences in HIV transmission patterns and conflicting scientific details regarding the biomolecular basis of the foreskin’s susceptibility. Nevertheless, by locating an abstract notion of relative risk in the body itself, I argue that histological studies of foreskin have played a key role in stabilizing male circumcision status as a new risk category, largely independent of a given individual’s risk profile
Biology · Categorization · Computer security · Environmental health · Epistemology · Foreskin · Male circumcision · Political science · Politics · Population · Randomized controlled trial · Computer Science · Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare · Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Issues · Genital Health and Disease · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Surgery
Biomedicalization
Evidence-Based Policy
Drugs for Life
Male circumcision for HIV prevention in young men in Kisumu, Kenya
Randomized, Controlled Intervention Trial of Male Circumcision for Reduction of HIV Infection Risk
Male circumcision for HIV prevention in men in Rakai, Uganda
The Politics of Life Itself
Aids, homophobia and biomedical discourse
Surveying risk subjects
Syphilis 1855 and HIV-Aids 2007
Why do some South African ethnic groups have very high HIV rates and others not
Long-term population effect of male circumcision in generalised HIV epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa
For men arousal is orientation’
Negotiating Exclusion
Making the Pap Smear into the `Right Tool' for the Job
A Surgical Temptation
Aids, Homophobia, and Biomedical Discourse
Risk society
La circoncision médicale masculine comme outil d’une politique sanitaire
La circoncision médicale masculine comme outil d'une politique sanitaire
Risk and Responsibility
Localizing the Global
Just a Snip
Male Circumcision and HIV Prevention
Embodied risk
The problem of evidence-based medicine
Getting Real
The pharmaceuticalization of sexual risk
The Undetectable Crisis
The Politics of Life Itself
Patients-in-Waiting
The pharmaceuticalisation of society? A framework for analysis
Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern
Drugs for All
| Citations per year | 0.43 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2019 - 2025 (7) |
| Highly cited | No |