Stories without significance in the discourse of breast reconstruction

Breast reconstruction is an everyday, apparently non-violent, even benevolent, remaking of the normal and the reasons for why reconstruction is motivated and legitimate are uncontroversial and widely accepted. In this article I will, through Donna Haraway’s way of conceptualizing discourses, analyze what I call “stories without significance”. I have mapped the stories and interpretations women undergoing reconstruction make, stories that are not becoming part of the monovocal discourse of breast reconstruction. Thus I will focus the things said that are not assigned significance, the silences and impossibilities. The article is also an effort to account for some of the invisible work that goes into the process of breast reconstruction in dialogue with the feminist STS field. This to explore the (re)making of the normal in a medical practice, and reflect on how modest interventions could be made.