Slippery Knowledge: Ignorance, Ecologies, and Environment in Endometriosis Framing

Andrea Ford
Medical anthropology quarterly · 2025 · vol. 39(4) , pp. e70002 · doi:10.1111/maq.70002 · PMID:40393045 · W4410531780
article OA: hybrid CC0 ⤵ 1 in-corpus citation
🔓 Open OA copy View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This paper explores why knowledge linking environmental toxins to endometriosis, despite existing, struggles to gain traction, proposing "slippery knowledge" as a concept that evades action due to issues beyond information scarcity, intertwined with power dynamics.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

Despite a growing body of literature linking environmental toxins and endometriosis, environmental issues make only occasional appearances in public, patient, and specialist conversations about endometriosis. These conversations may hover at the edges of public discourse, but do not gain traction. Based on ethnographic work in the United Kingdom, this article develops the concept of "slippery" knowledge as that which evades action. Ignorance of environmental or ecological etiologies is less a dearth of information than a dearth of possibilities for action. This article elaborates two ways of conceiving of environmental or ecological disease: the exposure model predicated on harmful external factors "getting in" to damage individuals or communities and the embodied ecologies model, which posits inevitable and ongoing mutual imbrication among living and non-living entities. Knowledge regarding endometriosis is "slippery" in both models. Whether knowledge seems actionable or not is inextricable from deep-seated power dynamics related to colonialism, gender, and race, which perpetuate ways of knowing (and acting) on endometriosis that are troubling and troublingly durable.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

mesh:D004715endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (100)

Cited by (1)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-04T01:30:01.192114+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-04T00:00:01.174412+00:00
pmc
last seen: 2026-05-13T20:22:03.195721+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-25T00:31:27.323519+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK