Finger Pricks and Blood Vials: How doctors medicalize 'cultural' solutions to demedicalize the 'broken'hymen in the Netherlands

This paper provides new perspectives on the scholarship on medicalization and demedicalization, building on an ethnography of hymenoplasty consultations in the Netherlands. By examining how doctors can play an active role in demedicalization, this paper presents novel insights into Dutch physicians' attempt to demedicalize the “broken” hymen. In their consultations, Dutch doctors persuade hymenoplasty patients to abandon the assumed medical definition of the “broken” hymen and offer nonmedical solutions to patients' problems. Drawing from unique ethnographical access from 2012 to 2015 to 70 hymenoplasty consultations in the Netherlands, this paper's original contribution comes from closely examining how demedicalization can be achieved through the process of medicalization. It investigates how Dutch physicians go even further in their efforts to demedicalize by medicalizing “cultural” solutions as an alternative course of action to surgery

How variability in hymenoplasty recommendations leads to contrasting rates of surgery in the Netherlands: an ethnographic qualitative analysis

Hymenoplasty is surgery to alter the shape of the hymen membrane in the vaginal canal, commonly performed to minimise the aperture. This medical operation is often requested by women who expect that their virginity will be under scrutiny, particularly during their first sexual encounter on their wedding night. Despite increasing demand for the surgery all over the globe, there is no one standard of practice in performing hymenoplasty. In the Netherlands, the manner in which medical consultations concerning the procedure take place depends heavily on the consulting physician. This paper looks at two different approaches to hymenoplasty consultation in the Netherlands: a pedagogical philosophy adopted in a public hospital and a practical approach employed by a private clinic. Each approach culminates in a contrasting result: patients in one medical establishment are twice as likely to undergo hymenoplasty than those visiting the other

Shadowing as a Methodology: Notes from Research in Strasbourg, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Milan

This chapter, written by four graduate students, introduces and critically evaluates the research methods of shadowing. Discussing their current and future fieldwork about different facets of Muslim lives in European cities (Strasbourg, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Milan) Oğuz Alyanak, Sherria Ayuandini, Guillermo Martín-Sáiz and Lauren Crossland-Marr introduce their concrete research questions and how shadowing was a helpful research tool for collecting data for their projects. They discuss brief experiences they made while shadowing and explain aspects of the data they gathered while also pointing to potential issues and limitations with shadowing

Negotiating policy ideas:Participatory action research projects across five European countries

IntroductionBetween 2019 and 2021, 199 adolescents collaborated with adults in 15 participatory action research projects, called Youth Alliances, to contribute to system-directed obesity prevention in five EU countries. We investigated if and how these Youth Alliances included diverse youth, enhanced engagement, generated policy proposals and changed problem perception.TheoryWe assessed the Youth Alliances from a micro-sociological perspective of negotiated order and attended to what we call third order effects: that participatory action provides time and space to renegotiate meaning.MethodologyWe used a case-comparative interpretive framework to attend to complexity. Based on collaborative and comparatively triangulated observations, documents and contextual data, we studied adaptations to Youth Alliances due to contextual demands and local contingencies in micro-interactions.ResultsYouth Alliances led to the involvement of adolescents from diverse backgrounds who participated meaningfully in a form of partnership, generated a wide variety of policy proposals, and learned about obesogenic systems, policies and participation in the process.Discussion and conclusionA focus on meaning-making and interaction reveals how one participation approach can have multiple and even contradictory outcomes depending on non-linear, emergent and contingent local interactions. Some of the outcomes represent well-known second order effects (e.g., changing power relations). But we also point to what we call third order effects: specific activities generated time and space for social interactions in which novel meaning could arise and consolidate

Negotiating policy ideas: Participatory action research projects across five European countries

EuropaIntroduction - Between 2019 and 2021, 199 adolescents collaborated with adults in 15 participatory action research projects, called Youth Alliances, to contribute to system-directed obesity prevention in five EU countries. We investigated if and how these Youth Alliances included diverse youth, enhanced engagement, generated policy proposals and changed problem perception. Theory We assessed the Youth Alliances from a micro-sociological perspective of negotiated order and attended to what we call third order effects: that participatory action provides time and space to renegotiate meaning. Methodology We used a case-comparative interpretive framework to attend to complexity. Based on collaborative and comparatively triangulated observations, documents and contextual data, we studied adaptations to Youth Alliances due to contextual demands and local contingencies in micro-interactions. Results Youth Alliances led to the involvement of adolescents from diverse backgrounds who participated meaningfully in a form of partnership, generated a wide variety of policy proposals, and learned about obesogenic systems, policies and participation in the process. Discussion and conclusion A focus on meaning-making and interaction reveals how one participation approach can have multiple and even contradictory outcomes depending on non-linear, emergent and contingent local interactions. Some of the outcomes represent well-known second order effects (e.g., changing power relations). But we also point to what we call third order effects: specific activities generated time and space for social interactions in which novel meaning could arise and consolidate.This work has been supported by: The ‘‘Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth’’ (CO-CREATE) project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 774210 (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/774210).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio