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underlying ontological problem: What is the part of the body left after a
mastectomy? Women talking about their experiences of mastectomy are faced with
complex referential tasks with regard to their bodies at different stages of the
past and present, within different discourses (medical, sexual, maternal), and from
different perspectives (the individual and the generic, their own perspective and
that of their medical professionals). Drawing on anthropological research conducted
among Australian women, we illustrate how women resolve difficulties of reference to
the site of the mastectomy, and examine the shifts in perspective that are marked by
different lexical choices.
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