Inscribed Bodies

Abstract

AcknowledgmentsChapter 1 APPROACHING LIFE-WORLD EXPERIENCES INTRODUCTIONThe present study represents an investigation into three aspects of the human life-world and their inter-relationship. 1 The first of these is integrity violation, explored within the framework specific to sexual abuse in childhood. The second aspect is the impact of sexual violation on health, explored within an epistemology of embodiment. The third aspect is biomedical intervention into illness stemming from sexual violation, explored within the frameworks of critical medical anthropology, feminist theory and a phenomenology of the lived body. 1. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONSThe study's tripartite exploration problematizes central ethical issues. These issues concern: the theory of current western biomedicine, the methodology and practice of biomedical knowledge production, and the normative impact of valid biomedical knowledge on both research focus and clinical practice. My considerations are based on the empirical material and the results of this study. Biomedical knowledge production is grounded, almost exclusively, in a naturalist cosmology. In such a philosophical framework, ethics is deemed separable from that which is regarded as nature. Since nature and natural matter is what biomedicine seeks to investigate, ethical dimensions of human life are defined as separate from the issues of interest. Thus definitionally subordinated, ethical considerations are not seen as influencing biomedical theory. They are not part of the groundwork of biomedical research. They do not inform the criteria for the choices of research issues. Issues regarding ethics are raised only to address the etiquette of research practice. Applied to 1 2 INSCRIBED BODIESresearch as rules of form, ethics are intended to secure correct conduct on the part of the scientists and their proper performance of research activities. They are addressed explicitly whenever research funds are allocated, study results published, or participants' consent requested. Ethics thus are seen to concern social or legal questions only. They form an addendum to the research design, ergo are of only decorative, or at best marginal, relevance to research. They are, of course, acknowledged as being of central relevance to issues of values. However, because issues of human values are seen as a principal source of contamination, and subjectivity is deemed a general source of mistake, the theoretical framework excludes them and sophisticated methodologies are developed in an attempt to avoid them.The present study provides evidence that it is precisely these measures, those intending to secure a value-neutral production of knowledge in biomedicine, which obstruct the disclosure of social pathology and its impact. Consequently and implicitly, valid biomedical knowledge actually contributes to maintaining a culturally constituted silence concerning certain practices, certain abuses of power. When measures taken in order to help or cure do not result in healing the people who ask for help, there are two...