The Body in the Mirror: Breast Cancer, Liminality and Borderlands
Norah Anita Schwartz, Christine Alysse von Glascoe
Abstract
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide, and has a high mortality rate in northern Mexico. Its high rates present one of the principal health challenges of the California-Baja California border region. We employed "entangled" ethnography and interpretative phenomenological methods to explore breast cancer experiences among a group of Mexican immigrant women living on the US side of this border. We explore their trajectory from biographical disruption to biographical renewal. The entangled ethnographic approach includes reflections of the first author's experience as a genetic breast cancer survivor.
Topics & Concepts
LiminalityEthnographyBreast cancerGender studiesImmigrationCancerSociologyEthnic groupDemographyMedicineHistoryAnthropologyInternal medicineArchaeologyBRCA gene mutations in cancerGlobal Cancer Incidence and ScreeningRace, Genetics, and Society