IV ISA Forum of Sociology (February 23-28, 2021)

177

Medicalization of Sexual and Reproductive Health in the Global South

Abstract Submissions Closed

RC15 Sociology of Health (host committee)

Language: English

Session Type: Oral

Sexual and reproductive health is increasingly defined and treated as a medical problem. The sociological framework of medicalization, the process by which non-medical problems become defined and/or treated as medical problems, has critical usefulness for understanding contemporary sexual and reproductive health issues. Empirical research to date has however mainly been focused on high income countries, for example on topics such as the medicalization of sexual dysfunction, the rise of cosmetical genital surgeries such as “rejuvenation”, the great amount of research done on fertility and childbirth. Increasing medicalization trends in sexual and reproductive health are also arising in the Global South, and develop simultaneously with the global health agenda being increasingly medicalized. In this session we want to shed light on the combination of both trends by presenting various research on the medicalization of sexual and reproductive health in the Global South and its policy implications and associated stratification mechanisms. Applying a sociological view on medicalization processes forces us to not merely look at the biomedical aspects of medicalization, but look at the broader social and political context including multiple determinants of health stratification. Moreover, discussing the medicalization of sexual and reproductive health issues in the Global South would bring with it an interesting discussion of the applicability of the current medicalization framework to the Global South. Possible topics might be the medicalization of female genital mutilation/cutting, increasing amount of C-sections as a consequence of medicalization of childbirth, oral pre-exposure (PrEP) prophylaxis programs for HIV patients, and so on.