Deconstructing fatalism: ethnographic perspectives on women's decision making about cancer prevention and treatment |
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Authors: | Drew Elaine M Schoenberg Nancy E |
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Institution: | Department of Family and Community Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, USA. |
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Abstract: | Researchers have long held that fatalism (the belief in a lack of personal power or control over destiny or fate) constitutes a major barrier to participation in positive health behaviors and, subsequently, adversely affects health outcomes. In this article, we present two in-depth, ethnographic studies of rural women's health decisions surrounding cancer treatments to illustrate the complexity and contestability of the long-established fatalism construct. Narrative analyses suggest that for these women, numerous and complex factors--including inadequate access to health services, a legacy of self-reliance, insufficient privacy, combined with a culturally acceptable idiom of fatalism--foster the use of, but not necessarily a rigid conviction in, the notion of fatalism. |
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