Doctoral Dissertation Research: Biotechnology and Culture

University Of Iowa, Iowa City IA

Investigators

Abstract

Graduate student Alexis Matza, supervised by Dr. Ellen Lewin, will investigate the hypothesis that increasing awareness of, access to, and effectiveness of biomedical technology have affected cultural notions of male identity in the United States. Anthropologists have found it useful to approach medicalization as a cultural process. However, most research has focused on women; this will be one of the first studies to investigate the medicalization of identity categories assumed dominant, such as masculinity. Matza's research design calls for controlled comparison case studies of two research populations in an urban community in North America, aging men (ages 40-70 years old) and men with uncertain gender identity. Both groups are potential users of drug therapies. She will use standard ethnographic research methods, including semi-structured interviews and participant observation. She also will employ computer-based text analysis techniques to analyze media accounts and medical textbooks accounts. Finally, she will interview biomedical and pharmaceutical stakeholders. Because biomedical prescriptions are intended to create or maintain masculine identity, this project will investigate the hypothesis that they also shape conceptions of normative identity. Although the specific relationship between therapy and masculinity is unique to men, this case speaks to wider-ranging theory building in social science which tries to understand how biomedical technologies of all sorts interact with concepts of human normalcy. These are issues of social as well as scientific interest. In addition the research will contribute to the education of a female social scientist.