The project examines the management of gendered chronic disease at the intersection of personalized medicine, rationalization of medicine and global drug shortages. It focuses on endometriosis, migraine and fibromyalgia, which are all characterized by episodes of pain and debated in terms of their link to gendered embodied processes. The data consists of bioscience research literature and media accounts of the diseases, online platforms and discussion forums for patients, and ethnographic interviews and observations among patient organizations, clinicians treating patients, governmental and public health officials involved in drafting treatment guidelines, representatives of pharmaceutical industry as well as two biomedical research institutions. The aim is to understand the emerging uses of the concept of gender and embodied differences in increasingly personalized and rationalized medicine as well as the changing preconditions of living with a gendered chronic disease.

2021

2025