Political Stakes of Cancer Podcast Series – Introduction

With recent emphasis on “cancer epidemics” in Asia and Africa (Banerjee 2020; Travis 2007; Lingwood et al. 2008) it has become increasingly clear that cancer is not only a problem of the wealthy or the global north but a matter of global concern. In the past decade, there has been a particularly significant expansion in social science writings on cancer, particularly in the global south, which have sought to unpack the social and political stakes of cancer for new subjectivities and within new contexts (Banerjee 2020; Caduff and Van Hollen 2019; Cochrane & Reubi, 2024; Livingston 2012; Mika 2016; Mueller 2019; Tousignant 2018; Van Hollen 2022; Vaughn et. al 2021; Wailoo 2010). This research is bringing to light a far more complex picture of cancer than what has been held so far, one in which culture, community, values, materialities, affects, power/knowledge, socio-political stakes, colonial and postcolonial histories, and more, have become an integral part for conceptualising this disease.

In 2022, we, the podcast editors, set up an international group of social science researchers working on cancer, the Political Stakes of Cancer Network. This podcast series is one among a series of activities of the Network in which we collectively interrogate the relationships between science, society and power in cancer worlds across the globe. As we have described elsewhere, “In our investigation of the political stakes of cancer epistemics, we approach the political as multi-layered. It pivots around the power relations between individuals, societies, structures, and systems. We lean on scholarship in science and technology studies (STS) and social anthropology to recognise the political as intimately related to structures and systems of power in which power produces knowledge and vice-versa – asking what relations of power are at play in cancer” (Bhangu et al, 2024).

In this series, which continues the work of the Network, we bring together interviews with early career researchers and experts investigating cancer in various social, political and geographical formations whose work is contributing towards building the contemporary landscape of cancer research. Over a series of 12 episodes, we deep dive into the work of anthropologists, sociologists and historians working across a vast array of contexts on varying aspects of cancer – from Mali, to Brazil, to China. We speak to these researchers about their experiences of doing cancer research – what drove them to choose their topics, what their fieldwork experiences were like, what they found through their research and the stakes they see embedded in studies of cancer in their research settings.

While the central aim of this podcast series is to interrogate the political stakes of cancer in these settings, it is intended to be approachable and interesting for non-expert audiences. The tone is therefore conversational, and emphasis is put on the personal experiences and thoughts of the podcast participants. Through this, we hope to offer insights both into what it is like to do cancer research on the ground, the challenges and joys of such work, and what it is like to do anthropological, sociological and historical research.

By bringing together scholars researching and writing about cancer from multiple disciplinary and geographical vantage points, we hope to demonstrate the particular and global stakes, forms and milieus within which cancer appears, lives and operates. We also hope, with this series, to offer some insight into the stakes and experiences of research itself – what it is like to be a researcher and to do fieldwork – particularly when this fieldwork tackles an emotionally challenging topic like cancer.

Each episode sheds light on doing archival and ethnographic work, as well as elucidates for us the subjectivity of the researcher. Second, as cancer gains traction as a site of research in the social studies of science and medicine, the series brings together a range of introspective and engaged conversations with scholars working in this personally challenging and morally complex research field. Third, as an audio-based product, the series hopes to be more accessible as a pedagogical tool for colleagues as they train the next generation of anthropologists, sociologists and historians. Fourth, the series covers a wide range of countries and regions, and a mix of early and advanced social scientists researching cancer to shed light on cancer as an emergent and one of the oldest research problematics in both the medical and social sciences.

The series has been produced by convenors of the Political Stakes of Cancer network, Thandeka Cochrane, Fabien Provost and Shagufta Bhangu and has been supported by various funding bodies at King’s College London including the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy’s Research Fund, the department of Global Health and Social Medicine’s Impact Fund and the Culture, Medicine and Power Research Group.

The series comprises of 12 episodes, each with a social science expert of cancer working in a different part of the world. Each podcast episode is hosted by one of the series’ editors, Thandeka Cochrane, Fabien Provost or Shagufta Bhangu. They are all edited by Rory O’Connor, https://linktr.ee/roryoconnor_music.

References

Banerjee, D., 2020, Enduring Cancer: Life, Death, and Diagnosis in Delhi. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Bhangu, S., Argudo-Portal, V., Araujo-Neto, L.A., Cochrane, T., Denisova, M. & Surawy-Stepney, N., 2024, ‘The Political Stakes of Cancer Epistemics,’ Social Science & Medicine, 359, 117176.

Caduff, C., Skelton, M., Banerjee, D., Djordjevic, D., Mika, M., Mueller, L., Sivaramakrishnan, K. & Van Hollen, C., 2018, ‘Analysis of Social Science Research into Cancer Care in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Improving Global Cancer Control Through Greater Interdisciplinary Research,’ Journal of Global Oncology, 4, 1-9.

Cochrane, T., Reubi, D., 2023, ‘Africa, cancer and civilization: a recursive history of pathology and progress,’ Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 97, 423–455.

Lingwood, R., Boyle, P., Milburn, A., Ngoma, T., Arbuthnott, J., McCaffrey, R., Kerr, S. H. & Kerr, D. J., 2008, ‘The Challenge of Cancer Control in Africa,’ Nature Reviews Cancer, 8, 398–404.

Livingston, J., 2012, Improvising Medicine: an African Oncology Ward in an Emerging Cancer Epidemic, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Mika, M., 2016, Africanizing Oncology: Creativity, Crisis and Cancer in Uganda, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.

Mueller, L.M., 2019, ‘Cancer in the Tropics,’ BioSocieties, 14(4), 512–528.

Tousignant, N., 2018, Edges of Exposure: Toxicology and the Problem of Capacity in Postcolonial Senegal, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Travis, K., 2007, ‘Health Experts Aim to Curb Potential Epidemic,’ Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 99 (15), 1146–1147.

Van Hollen, C., 2022, Cancer and the Kali Yuga: Gender, Inequality, and Health in South India, University of California Press.

Vaughn, M., Adjaye-Gbwenyo, K. & Mika, M. (eds.), 2021, Epidemiological Change and Chronic Disease in Sub-Saharan Africa, University College London Press.

Wailoo, K., 2010, How Cancer Crossed the Color Line, Oxford University Press.