ABSTRACT
The burgeoning growth in health activism around breast cancer since the early 1990s has been facilitated by and led to a proliferation of patient, lay or grass roots breast cancer organisations in both the UK, Europe and North America. All have in different ways contributed to the de-stigmatisation of the disease by highlighting the scale of the breast cancer ‘epidemic’, informing a discourse about ‘risk’ and the need for ‘awareness’ (Anglin 1997; Montini 1996; Lantz and Booth 1998; Klawiter 2000; Potts 1999; Blackstone 2004; King 2001). Glossed collectively in terms of ‘breast cancer activism’ the diverse social collectives that come together under the rubric of this descriptive term are illustrative of the way, as Epstein points out, the ‘politics of feminist and women’s health criss-cross the bio-medical landscape’ such that they are now ‘implicated with rise of pat groups and health movements to quite an astonishing degree’ (2007: 8).
