Department of Education and Employment, St Mary's University College, Twickenham.
Sociol Health Illn. 2010 Jan;32(1):74-88. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2009.01182.x. Epub 2009 Jul 9.
Drawing on a research collaboration between a group of medical physicists and social scientists, this paper aims to explore female volunteers' experiences of participating in a project for developing a new breast disease diagnostic technology using an optical imaging system. In order to understand how these women make sense of being a volunteer, we examine the complexities of their experiences in this type of research setting through an empirically-based study involving participant observation and semi-structured interviews with the volunteers. Traditionally, volunteers are constructed as passive research material. In contrast, the women in our study are by no means docile bodies - but are active in deploying strategies that create opportunities to exert a level of control over perceived threats within the research encounter. We examine how volunteers translate these threats into 'boundaries' about what is and is not acceptable or permissible within this environment, paying particular attention to boundary setting around participation, and invasions of the body (such as pain, touch and exposure, and physical safety), and exploring the strategies volunteers draw on to counter perceived threats to their bodies.
本文通过医学物理学家和社会科学家之间的合作研究，旨在探讨女性志愿者参与使用光学成像系统开发新的乳腺疾病诊断技术项目的体验。为了了解这些女性如何理解自己作为志愿者的身份，我们通过一项基于实证的研究，通过参与观察和对志愿者进行半结构化访谈，来研究她们在这种研究环境中的体验的复杂性。传统上，志愿者被构建为被动的研究材料。相比之下，我们研究中的女性绝不是温顺的身体——而是积极地运用策略，为自己创造机会，对研究过程中感知到的威胁施加一定程度的控制。我们研究志愿者如何将这些威胁转化为关于在这种环境中可接受或可允许的界限，特别关注围绕参与和身体侵犯（如疼痛、触摸和暴露以及身体安全）的界限设定，并探讨志愿者用来对抗对身体的感知威胁的策略。
