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Abject Ontologies: Cancer and 'Living On'.
Nadine Ehlers1, Shiloh Krupar2
1Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia. nadine.ehlers@sydney.edu.au.
The Journal of Medical Humanities
|September 10, 2021
Summary
This study explores how cancer and its treatments create "abject ontologies," challenging human identity and modernist categories. It calls for a new ethical approach to public cancer discourse.
Area of Science:
- Medical Sociology
- Philosophy of Medicine
- Cancer Studies
Background:
- Cancer is often conceptualized as an abject lifeform.
- Modernist logic creates stable categories that cancer disrupts.
- Existing public discourse on cancer may lack ethical depth.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine cancer through the theoretical lens of abjection.
- To explore the abject ontologies produced by cancer detection and treatment.
- To investigate how cancer challenges human identity and modernist categories.
Main Methods:
- Conceptual analysis using the theory of abjection.
- Examination of cancer detection technologies and practices.
- Analysis of cancer treatment, specifically Adriamycin and Cytoxan drug combination.
Main Results:
- Cancer and its associated technologies/treatments generate "abject ontologies."
- These ontologies destabilize modernist categories of being.
- Living with and recovering from cancer fundamentally challenges the notion of being human.
Conclusions:
- Cancer necessitates a reevaluation of human identity beyond modernist frameworks.
- Abject ontologies produced by cancer demand an ethical reorientation of public discourse.
- A new ethical framework is required for discussing cancer publicly.
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