“Be Proactive, Perform Regular Skin Self‐Exams and Protect Yourself”: Producing the Skin‐Aware Biocitizen in the Context of the United States

We analyze US‐based online skin cancer organization awareness campaigns, with a particular focus on melanoma, to ask how the skin is discursively created. We focus on the ways people are pushed into the role of the biocitizen and impelled to act in specific ways within the current neoliberal health risk culture. Undertaking a discourse analysis of skin cancer education information reveals that skin is constructed as fragile, at risk, and in need of routine scrutiny initiated by the individual. The skin is also constructed as impossible to fully protect. The individual is responsible for managing this risk burden for themself and for family. This includes protective clothing and sunscreen, as well as learning to anticipate where and when sun exposure may occur. Across the US‐based organizations providing skin cancer education, the neoliberal project of the self is focused on the body's largest and most exposed organ: the skin. Undertaking close skin surveillance can lead to unanticipated harms, including fear, anxiety, reduction in activities, and overdiagnosis.