Kennedy (2009a): Interview with Margaret Lock (excerpt)

In her interview, Margaret Lock states that biomedicine often assumes that there is a universal
body, but she emphasizes that variation within individuals must be recognized. The main
application of this assumption is to assume that new approaches and methodologies discovered
can be used everywhere in the world. It also assumes that culture is the only thing that affects
people, but nature also has a large role to play. Lock also states that medical anthropologists
ignore the social aspects of medical conditions in favor of individualization, acknowledging the
fact that not all conditions can be treated the same universally.

Lock (2004): “Medicalization and the Naturalization of Social Control”

In her article “Medicalization and the Naturalization of Social Control”, Margaret Lock states
that medicine has essentially taken over social control over other institutions like religion and
law. This medicalization has been developing since the formation of new specialties and the
large influx of new medical knowledge in the 18th and 19th centuries. This also resulted in
certain people being focused on and excluded relating to their health. Lock focuses on the idea
that certain behaviors that were originally socially determined moved toward being biologically
determined through medicine. Lock also highlights the feminist movement at the time relating to
women trying to maintain rights to their own bodies and medicalization attempted to control
them. In addition, Lock highlights the developments in medical technology, especially in genetic
testing and how viewing this medicalization as surveillance is incorrect. She also states that it is
wrong to only look at the social construction of medicalization and to look past the real
conditions that many people are suffering from.