Organizational websites not only provide information but also have the potential to influence societal beliefs and values on contested issues. This study addresses how the rhetoric of two informational websites concerned with genetic testing for breast cancer contributes to the hegemony of geneticisation in medicine. The two sites analysed are CancerBACUP's Genetics from the United Kingdom and Cancer Facts. Genetic Testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2: It's Your Choice, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute in the United States, McGee's (1980) theory of ideographic analysis was chosen as the analytic framework for the study. Ideographs are ordinary language terms that function as the basic structural elements of an ideology. They are crafted in use according the goals and needs of the author and their meanings can be altered in concert with changing conditions within a society. An examination of ideographs offers insight into how organisations use language to encourage public adherence to the values and beliefs that benefit the organisation. Three ideographs commonly used in traditional medical communication, CHOICE, RESPONSIBILITY and PRIVACY, were identified in both websites. The analysis shows that CancerBACUP and the NCI alter the common understandings of these terms to normalize the changes brought about by genetics. CHOICE is reconfigured to limit expectations of genetic testing for breast cancer. The understanding of RESPONSIBILITY in health care is expanded to assume concern for the health of family and future generations and PRIVACY is no longer an individual matter but is seen in terms of the privacy of family. Reconstituting the traditional meanings of these ideographs to accommodate the needs of genetics in medicine allows the organizations to support the current hegemonic paradigm, thus appealing to influential stakeholders, while promoting the geneticisation of medicine in the public sphere

This thesis derives from ethnographic research undertaken in sites of Israeli NF and egg donation between January and September 2002. The thesis begins with an examination of some features of the general context of Israeli ova donation through an analysis of a set of stories about the theft of ova and an egg shortage crisis, which emerged in the year prior to my fieldwork in Israel (2001). It then moves to an examination of NF and egg donation at a state run clinic in Jerusalem. From there I trace some new practices of transnational ova donation in three sites and sets of practices: an IVF clinic in Tel Aviv; donor trait selection at this Tel Aviv clinic; and an Israeli egg donation and extraction clinic in Romania. I trace some key features of these sites and practices. Through this analysis, I explore some of the ways in which discursive practices of Israeli . extraction, exchange, and implantation are important sites in the making of gender, religious, race and kinship relations, and are thereby implicated in the making of the Israeli nation. The study frames egg donation practices as 'national imaginaries', which are resonant with, and implicated in, the politics of (re)producing the state of Israel as Jewish and Euro-American, One element of this which is identified here has been the shift towards privatisation of health care. I document some of the features and consequences of this privatisation in the sphere of Israeli IVF and transnational ova trafficking. Conducted during a period in which political and military negotiations of Israeli borders were intense, this research examines another, but related, site of border struggles .- medically assisted reproduction.

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This thesis explores the prevalence of freaks in late nineteenth-century British culture through popular and medical print media. Through their consistent representation and exhibition, freaks became a part of mainstream culture. Due to their regular reproduction, freak narratives and images often perpetuated the lives of freaks long after their deaths; thereby creating freak legacies. This thesis employs the theoretical concept of generativity, drawn from John Kotre’s work, to investigate the role of freaks and freak legacies in late nineteenth-century culture. Generativity is the process which allows the continuation of lives after death, through the creation and perpetuation of legacy. Through their regular representation and reproduction in print, I argue, freaks were generative in that they contributed to the perpetuation of their own and others’ legacies in late nineteenth-century Britain. In particular, the generativity of freak narratives for medical and popular press readerships is considered to demonstrate the multiple ways freak representations were constructed to suit broad and diverse audiences. The first two chapters of this thesis examine popular representations of freaks and the last two look at medicine’s interaction with freak bodies. The first half of this thesis establishes the mainstream status of freaks by exploring their numerous representations in a diverse range of popular print sources. The first chapter demonstrates some of the ways popular media engaged with freaks and their legacies. In the second chapter, the popular appeal of freaks is further explored through a case study of the two UK visits of the Barnum and Bailey circus at the end of the nineteenth century. Particular attention is paid to the generative use of freaks in building the famous showman Phineas T. Barnum’s legacy. Then, the next half of this thesis turns to medical culture to explore the professional engagement with anomalous bodies. Chapter three explores the intricacies of the medicine –freak relationship by demonstrating medicine’s attempts to assert authority over freakish bodies. The final chapter examines the importance of legacy to the medical profession and offers an analysis of three freak case studies which demonstrate this aim. These case studies also make up a chapter in Popular Exhibitions, Science and Showmanship, 1840-1910, which is due to be published by Pickering and Chatto in 2012.