Bioethics, sexual and reproductive rights

Genitalks

Genitalks: An ethnography of genital self-image and genital cosmetic surgeries among women and people with a vulva in Belgium and the Netherlands

Postdoc project

In this project Dr. Hannelore Van Bavel researches genital self-image among girls, women, and people with a vulva in Belgium and the Netherlands. It is funded by a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action Postdoctoral Fellowship and is multidimensional:

How do people with vulvas perceive their genitals, and what factors influence these perceptions? How do these perceptions impact their mental health and sexual relationships? Do they utilise coping mechanisms to deal with a potentially negative genital self-image, and if so, what are these mechanisms, and how do they impact their perception of their genitals?

In addition, the project investigates the rapid increase in female genital cosmetic surgery: why do individuals seek such surgeries? How do medics respond to concerns about genital appearance and/or function and to requests for cosmetic genital surgery?

The study uses an ethnographic approach, consisting of participant observation, in-depth interviews, and art-based focus group discussions. The empirical findings will be used to formulate a bioethical standpoint on female genital cosmetic surgeries. You can keep following Hannelore Van Bavel's work on Genitalks, a hub for research-based discussions on genital perceptions & practices she has created (below).

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Negotiating consent

Negotiating consent: patient agency and surgery from a European perspective, 1900-2000

Today, nobody will contest the fundamental importance of informed consent as a legal and ethical requirement in biomedicine. Scholars have often depicted the rise of informed consent as a recent development in which patients have achieved (legal) autonomy since the 1960s. Yet, by focusing on conceptual changes, they have neglected the fact that patients have always had agency. This project challenges the view that patients had almost no autonomy in interactions with their physicians before the end of the 20th century. It aims to provide a long-term comparative perspective on patient’s role in negotiations about surgical consent in Europe from 1900 until 2000.

The project will use a practice-oriented methodology to analyze negotiations over consent. Rarely used sources such as hospital archives, medical journals and digitized newspaper articles, will be inventoried, gathered and analyzed in a digital repository that will support future applications for project funding. Using this innovative methodology, this project will extend existing histories of informed consent in which the patient voice has been overlooked. It will generate fresh insight into broader shifts in patient agency and into the behavior of patients in relation to physicians, relatives and other actors.