At the beginning of this year, I stopped exploring how women with breast cancer represent their experiences and identities by blogging. I completed enough background research to get familiar with the pages of women who either passed on, or just stopped writing. After talking with a friend who is a survivor of breast cancer, I decided that I did not feel comfortable with continuing the research. (Since then, my Grandmother has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This changes my thinking on the research a bit, especially since my mother and aunt have decided to use a blog to update our far-flung family on Grandma's health).
At that time, I was unable to adequately resolve personal questions surrounding the ethics of my participant observation work.
Thes ethical dilemmas were made more complex by nagging questions about the conceptual framework within which I was situating the research. In a nutshell, with the help of contributors to blogher and a book by Samantha King entitled "Pink Ribbons, Inc: Breast Cancer and The Politics of Philanthropy" (hyperlinks added after I cooked dinner), I had begun to explore how the blogs of women with breast cancer were part of a larger, continuing discourse on the ownership of women's experiences and the commodification of that experience.
However, I'd like to thank the two anonymous women standing outside of the Today show this morning for--as Justin Timberlake would say--"Bringing Sexy Back," for leading me to this website, and for rekindling my interest in the project.
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