Locating Agency among the Predictive Breast Cancer Women of Bangladesh

Abstract

The paper highlights the factors that encourage women to overcome the stigma of performing predictive tests for breast cancer in Bangladesh. It is an interpretive phenomenological study of seven women who had a family history of experiencing breast cancer within the last 10 years. The current study discusses Bangladeshi women’s subjective experiences of predictive tests to detect any physiological deviation of the breast. Besides, it confers how early diagnosis of breast cancer is hindered by shyness and discomfort as they exhibited. Women “at risk” for breast cancer, due to genetic affiliation, share their knowledge with their kin network, which works as social capital to build up agency. Moreover, positive experiences with predictive tests need to be ensured by health service providers. In brief, kin networks, determination, information from others, and the involvement of the cohorts could reduce hereditary cancer risk and allow early treatment for many women. Moreover, the communicative behavior of the doctors and their high social capital induces these predictive breast cancer women to act positively towards the predictive tests.

Social Science Review, Vol. 41(2), December 2024, pp. 155-168