A recurring idea in the bioethics literature on new digital medical technologies is one of ‘empowerment’. One issue that has been conspicuously absent from these discussions relates to resistance. To shine a light on this void in the bioethics field, the present paper highlights the importance of this concept within the phenomenon of do-it-yourself (DIY) medicine, that we broadly define as an activity where individuals create or appropriate a product or service related to health and well-being by their reliance on digital innovation. We begin by contextualising the emergence and development of DIY medicine. We then explore how the empowerment rhetoric associated with these practices can paradoxically generate new forms of responsibilisation and inequality. Next, we draw on conceptual literature to elucidate the notion of resistance as it applies to health and medicine. Finally, we identify and analyse two distinct modes in which resistance intersects with DIY medicine: resistance to DIY medicine practices and DIY medicine practices as forms of resistance.
Proost et al. (Fri,) studied this question.