%0 Journal Article
%T Embodiment and Ontologies of Inequality in Medicine:  Towards an Integrative Understanding of Disease and Health Disparities
%A M Austin Argentieri
%J Body & Society
%@ 1460-3632
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/1357034X17746468
%X In this article, I draw on my fieldwork creating protein models of hepatitis B at a biotech laboratory to think through how to approach the body and disease from ontological and phenomenological perspectives. I subsequently draw on Mariella Pandolfi¡¯s work on how bodies can be made to suffer history and Paul Farmer¡¯s work on global tuberculosis disparities to explore ways of analysing embodied activity as a means of identifying and clinically addressing enactments of social inequality and disease. I also introduce Merleau-Ponty¡¯s phenomenological concept of ¡®flesh¡¯ as a conceptual heuristic that allows us to understand the meaningful structuring of ontological worlds beyond our own. As I argue, bringing these perspectives together not only allows us to re-envision what an effective disease treatment should be in diverse medical contexts, but also how to better understand health disparities and the nature of disease itself
%K actor-network theory
%K disease
%K embodiment
%K hepatitis B
%K Merleau-Ponty
%K ontology
%K phenomenology
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1357034X17746468