ABSTRACT
I went out for a run one day. And then my knee just started to hurt so badly that I couldn’t, I couldn’t run back. So I called the doctor who had done the arthroscopy to hear what it could be that would hurt that way all of a sudden. Then he said that it could be cartilage formations on the kneecap or behind the kneecap somewhere. He recommended that I signed up for another arthroscopy, so I did that. And then there were cartilage formations in the knee, and he removed them, and then I was okay with that knee. I remember he asked me why I didn’t get my cruciate ligament fi xed. And then I said I thought it was working quite okay. I guess I was a bit scared to have it fi xed. (Bolette, 37)
In medical sociology, the question of whether recent biomedical technologies create docile bodies or produce refl exive users is frequently posed.1 The potentially oppressive eff ect and the pathologizing medicalization tendencies of the technology are discussed in relation to the more positive aspects of medical technology.2 On the one hand, critics highlight the unintentional and negative consequences of new technology3; on the other, the potentially liberating aspects of new technological discoveries are emphasized.4 Williams and Calnan state that the macro-theoretically based medical sociology has established knowledge that shows that the public accept and trust modern medicine.5 However, people’s relationship to medical knowledge is still ambivalent and ambiguous, and the use of the knowledge complex. Thus, new research argues that laypeople are not passive and dependent on modern medicine, but that the picture is much more complex.6 This can be illustrated through behaviors ranging from people’s use of alternative medicine,7 to bodybuilders’ expert use of pharmaceuticals (see also Pike’s and Atkinson’s contributions to this collection).8
