Description
Special exhibition “Social Contagion”, Moesgård Museum, February 11 – May 14, 2017.
Marie Louise Tørring: Reframing Cancer as an Acute Condition
Numbers generate belief – belief is catching!
Cancer rates are rising in the ageing population of the Western world, but longevity is not the only reason why cancer is increasingly being perceived as a lurking epidemic. The extensive registration of cancer and dissemination of statistics carry a constant communication of risk, which makes the notion of cancer more present in people’s everyday lives.
In my project, I track the framing of cancer as an acute condition across time and space via research networks, media and health policies in Denmark. I also use the ethnographic fieldwork as a way to examine how numbers and statistics generate beliefs on an everyday basis. And so, I have spent time at a local cancer registration service in England where a small team of people – under the slogan of “Fighting cancer with information” – strive to make a short cut through research and bring cancer statistics directly to the people.
Marie Louise Tørring: At nytænke kræft som akut sygdom
Tal overbeviser – overbevisning smitter!
Kræftforekomsten stiger i de vestlige landes aldrende befolkninger, men længere levealder er ikke den eneste grund til, at man særligt i Vesten oplever kræft som en lurende epidemi. Den omfattende registrering og statistik over kræft fører en konstant risikoformidling med sig og gør forestillingen om kræft til et dagligt nærværende fænomen.
I mit projekt følger jeg akut-kræft-agendaen på tværs af tid og rum via forskernetværk, medier og sundhedspolitikker i Danmark – og jeg bruger det etnografiske feltarbejde som metode til at undersøge, hvad der får kræfttal til at virke i hverdagen. Derfor har jeg blandt andet opholdt mig på et regionalt kontor under den engelske cancerregistreringstjeneste, der med sloganet ”Fighting cancer with information” har en vision om at springe forskerne over og bringe kræftstatistik direkte til folket.
Project Details
A film by: EPICENTER
EPICENTER explores the social life of epidemics – including cultural epidemics. The Centre aims to fill a gap in scientific as well as popular understandings of contagion, by asking: What is contagion? The traditional distinction between communicable and non-communicable diseases is challenged through research. Currently epidemics of non-communicable diseases are spreading, but the social dynamics of how these diseases spread are poorly theorized. The Centre is currently hosting studies in Denmark, South Africa, Uganda, Siberia, Nepal, and Egypt on cancer, HIV, diabetes, drug addiction, trauma, suicide, migration, prevention and treatment regimes.
The Centre will be a platform of communication between researchers and the public through museum exhibitions.
For more information visit: epicenter.au.dk