Abstract
Irene Kambriani
National School of Public Health
When biography and biology enter into dialogue: the narrative negotiation of the family history of disease
The paper focuses on narratives of women related to modern imperatives on individual responsibility in health matters and the prevention or early diagnosis of breast cancer. Drawing on individual interviews and group discussions, I will analyze the ways in which the narration of individual and family life stories contributes to identity formation in relation with the history of the local community and the challenges of social change. This research draws on fieldwork carried out among mixed communities of “native” residents and refugees from Asia Minor in the peninsula of Chalcidice in Northern Greece. Through the narratives on their conceptualization of disease and hereditary “danger”, women resort to intergenerational patterns, collective lived experiences and stereotypical traits that set apart the two communities.
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