“Technobonds” – the role of gene-related technologies in the redefinition of “care” and family among cancer patients in Poland
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Abstract
Advanced technologies are the key factor in medical progress and quality of care. However, their implementation creates knowledge, social needs, practices and responses. I argue, based on my ethnographic research conducted from 2009 to 2012 in Warsaw and Białystok (Poland), that technologies play a crucial role in biographies and narratives of people suffering from cancer. This is especially clear when talking with and about patient`s ills family in the context of gene-related technologies.
In this article I analyze a body of interviews conducted with people families in which cancer was a common disease. Their ideas and beliefs about care, aetiology and character of disease were strongly medicalized. The definition of family and ties were under a strong influence of new language and technologies derived from gene-related medicine. As a result, “technobonds” – a new definition and representation of family relations can be observed. Techobonds might be perceived as a new form of “internal, familiar care” – a subjective project created by lay people confronted with biomedical knowledge and practices but also with life-challenging emotions like fear and uncertainty.
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