Mattering Difference Cervical Cancer, HPV Vaccines and Global Health

Vaccines are a contested technology. On the one hand, they have been presented by health policymakers, researchers and practitioners as the most powerful weapon in the war against global disease. On the other hand, vaccines have been an object of criticism and distrust by anti-vaccines social movements. Cervical cancer is a woman’s disease in that it is a deeply gendered disease. It has had an important capacity for embodying historical power relations and material conditions of women experience. Cervical Screening programmes and a general improvement in healthcare services in the “developed” world has meant a significant reduction in its incidence and mortality. However, such improvement has not occurred in the “developing” world at the same rate. HPV vaccines dwell between these worlds. HPV vaccines are not only a good case for understanding the convergence of such tensions, but also they make visible new problems such as co-production between gender, technology and disease.

This paper presents the discourses on cervical cancer and vaccines as the framework used in the production of narratives about HPV vaccines. I use the terms politics of disease and politics of prevention in order to describe the arrangements of objects, narratives and institutions that involve the contemporary perceptions on cervical cancer and vaccines. I describe the tensions that make vaccines a contested technology and cervical cancer a marginal disease. On the other hand, cervical cancer has a particular story as a malady associated with poverty and sexual stigma. I discuss the permanence of these narratives in the contemporary policies and practices on cervical cancer and development. Finally, HPV vaccines establish a connection between the worlds of cervical cancer and vaccines. These technologies not only gather such tensions, but also they make visible new problems such as co-production between gender, technology and disease, the development of “anticipated” cure.