Biomedicalization: Technoscience, Health, and Illness in the U.S.

The rise of Western scientific medicine fully established the medical sector of the U.S. political economy by the end of the Second World War, the first “social transformation of American medicine.” Then, in an ongoing process called medicalization, the jurisdiction of medicine began expanding, redefining certain areas once deemed moral, social, or legal problems (such as alcoholism, drug addiction, and obesity) as medical problems. The editors of this important collection argue that since the mid-1980s, dramatic, and especially technoscientific, changes in the constitution, organization, and practices of contemporary biomedicine have coalesced into biomedicalization, the second major transformation of American medicine. This volume offers in-depth analyses and case studies along with the groundbreaking essay in which the editors first elaborated their theory of biomedicalization.

Contributors. Natalie Boero, Adele E. Clarke, Jennifer R. Fishman, Jennifer Ruth Fosket, Kelly Joyce, Jonathan Kahn, Laura Mamo, Jackie Orr, Elianne Riska, Janet K. Shim, Sara Shostak

Adele E. Clarke is Professor of Sociology and History of Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.

Laura Mamo is Associate Professor at the Health Equity Institute for Research, Practice, and Policy at San Francisco State University.

Jennifer Ruth Fosket is a principal and founder of Social Green, where she does research and writes on the intersections of health, the built environment, and sustainability.

Jennifer R. Fishman is Assistant Professor in the Social Studies of Medicine Department at McGill University.

Janet K. Shim is Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.