Paper short abstract:

The fundamental theme of this study are the uses, appropriations and various repercussions of the category of spirituality in the field of health. This paper os about the medical methodologies that enact spirituality in a material form.

Paper long abstract:

The fundamental theme of this study are the uses, appropriations and various repercussions of the category of spirituality in the field of health. Medical research on possible correlations between spirituality and health has increased significantly since the 1980s. Anyone willing to read the material will find conclusions such as: if you are more spiritual you will have a reduced chance of a heart attack; more spiritual people are less predisposed to developing Alzheimer's disease; the more spiritual you are, the greater your resilience to depressive states, et cetera. As one can presume, in order to establish such correlations, medical researchers employ instruments and methodologies capable of converting "spirituality" into scientific datum. That is to say, they must transform it into some kind of observable, recordable, and comparable indicator. It is in this sense that medical research, before simply describing correlations between spirituality and health, works to transform the abstract idea of spirituality into an object of concrete reality. This paper is an effort to reflect about the ways that medical researchers are trying to materialize spirituality as health matter.