Graduation Year

2024

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Anthropology

Reader 1

Gabriela Morales

Reader 2

Christine Bejarano

Rights Information

© 2024 Sulekha Ram-Junnarkar

Abstract

This study investigates how early-stage cancer patients and survivors engage with social narratives of cancer risk and responsibility in the context of U.S. late capitalism. While scientific research has shown that factors such as environmental pollution, diet, and smoking correlate with cancer in the U.S. (Anand et al. 2008), people tend to develop their own etiologies of cancer to make sense of uncertainty. I conducted fifteen one-on-one ethnographic interviews which entailed a set of open-ended questions that explored various dimensions of cancer etiology. I found that my interlocutors largely understand cancer to result from external factors associated with the conditions of late capitalism: workplace stress and carcinogenic environments. However, they simultaneously thought of it as a question of individual responsibility and risk management, rather than as a larger structural issue. Amid feelings of self-blame, my interlocutors turned to more spiritual and cosmic frameworks to move away from the burdens of the individual responsibility model. Despite these spiritual framings, some interlocutors brought the blame back to themselves, which speaks to the dominant ethos of individual responsibility under late capitalism. This self-blame ultimately obfuscates the structural workings of late capitalism and allows for the perpetuation of disease causation within the contemporary U.S. Thus, this study advocates for the implementation of more equitable systems aimed at mitigating cancer risk, including measures to reduce workplace stress and regulate chemical toxins.

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This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

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