Paper prepared for the 3rd talk in the Aarhus Center for Health, Culture and Society (ACHCS) Lecture Series, Aarhus University.

Takes place at Moesgård, the old library on the 1st floor of the main building, 3 May 2017 at 2-4 pm.

Abstract Words like ‘epidemic’, ‘contagious’ and ‘viral’ have been very much in the air since social media emerged in the first decade of the 21st Century. They effectively communicate a common and growing experience of information overload, schismogenetic propagation of beliefs, and accelerated change in arenas of politics, climate, faith, science, medicine etcetera. The words are there to grip, but, are they suitable analytical terms for understanding rapid cultural changes in the field of cancer control? This paper is a reflection on the transient realty of cancer.

I will begin by briefly introducing four kinds of cancer epidemics. The main point that I wish to argue here is that a new kind of cancer epidemic – one inextricably linked with longevity – has become a positive present only very recently and very locally in high-income populations. I also propound that the term “epidemic”, in this case, might be inviting an unhealthy sense of reality.

In the second part, I will illustrate my points by presenting a local exemplar of 21st century accelerated change in cancer control: the sudden reframing of cancer as an acute condition in Denmark. I will argue, with Ian Hacking, that events which took place in Denmark in the 2000s were shaped by a configuration of four principle vectors to be named objectivity, narrativity, cultural polarity and longevity.

In the third part, I contemplate on the general significance of the Danish case and ask whether its vectors could provide a framework for understanding cancer transitions world wide. My provisional answer is yes: The prehistory of acute cancer in Denmark is closely tied with over 200 years of biopolitics, and its time-efficient apparatus already thrives in many other places.

As a final point (but only if time permits), I will explain why I think local cases of longevity- driven cancer epidemics deserve ethnographic attention and a place on the future research agenda in the anthropology of cancer – perhaps even in the study of Man.