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Negotiating knowledge and power: the National Policy for Comprehensive Men’s Healthcare and the Brazilian Society of Urology

Abstract

The aim of this article is to demonstrate the negotiations and disputes between different kinds of knowledge and power in the history of the Brazilian National Policy for Comprehensive Men’s Healthcare based on the creation in 2008 of the Technical Area for Men’s Health within the Ministry of Health’s Department of Strategic Programs. We observed the Brazilian Society of Urology’s position as the policy was being drawn up, including the discourse adopted, based on interviews held with managers from the Ministry of Health and the assistant representative of the United Nations Population Fund in Brazil. We analyzed the visibility of the male body in signs of resistance to the interventions of biopower in the expression of the right to health.

medicalization; male sexuality; National Policy for Comprehensive Men’s Healthcare; Brazil

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