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- Convenors:
-
Maria Concetta Lo Bosco
(Institute of Social Sciences - University of Lisbon)
Kira Schmidt Stiedenroth (Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf)
Mujibul Anam (Jahangirnagar University)
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- Discussant:
-
Francesca De Luca
(Universidade de Lisboa - Instituto Ciencias Sociais)
- Formats:
- Panels
- Sessions:
- Thursday 23 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
Self-improvement procedures, like performance drugs, hormonal enhancement, plastic surgery and body-hacking practices, are booming and proliferating across the world. This panel addresses the various forms and contexts under which self-enhancement projects take place.
Long Abstract:
Self-improvement procedures, like performance drugs, hormonal enhancement, plastic surgery and body-hacking practices, are booming and proliferating across the world. Enhancement biotechnologies are cheaper, less invasive, more accessible and affordable than ever.
As neoliberal politics are increasingly characterized by the individualization of responsibility for social mobility, self-realization, and labour productivity, interventions of self-improvement become not only desired but also necessary. The democratization of 'wish-fulfilling medicine' is exported globally as a will to improve and aspiration to become healthier, younger, longer-lived and altogether 'better' subjects.
This panel addresses the various forms and contexts under which biotechnologies of self-enhancement operate. In particular, we are interested in the productive tension emanating from the growing availability of self-improvement practices and their potential to re-shuffle or exacerbate existing inequalities, the promotion of biotechnologies of the self as an individual right, and the socio-economic conditions that make self-improvement through biotechnologies desired or necessary in the first place.
Our aim is to open a reflection on enhancement practices and subjectivities within shifting economic and socio-historical contexts, asking: what aspirations underlie biological self-making through enhancement technologies? What are the logics, limits and foresight of body manipulations? Can these practices endorse or challenge analytical concepts of humanity and post-humanity in social sciences? We encourage papers that address enhancement biotechnologies as practices of self-making, gendered self-construction projects through body modification, transnational geographies of biotechnologies of enhancement and their markets, body-hacking practices and bio-hacking advocacy for universal access to biotechnologies.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 23 July, 2020, -Paper short abstract:
Achieving the ideal of a healthy self through lifestyle changes has become a worldwide trend. This paper explores how "healthy subjects" are constructed in a religiously-motivated group that criticizes biomedical enhancement technologies and provides their own interpretation of self-improvement.
Paper long abstract:
We have been witnessing a growing interest in self-improvement projects through the discourses of clean eating, obtaining a fit body and leading an active life. While aiming at achieving an "ideal" healthy self, these projects make individuals focus primarily on themselves. As an extension of the neoliberal understanding of individual development, the concept of self-improvement prioritizes individual willingness over structural determinism in making lifestyle changes. It encourages people to reach the "best" version of themselves by taking control of their daily habits and to "push" their limits by challenging themselves.
When religiously motivated reasons come into play in the neo-liberal context of self-improvement, individualized enhancement goals serve to render a "healthy" subject through spiritual cleansing and leading a "proper" life in compliance with religious orders. By looking at how religiously oriented health practices interact with the neoliberal policies of self-improvement, I will elaborate on how self-enhancement is interpreted within a healing network in Turkey. Being critical of biomedical and biotechnological interventions on the human body, the members of the network recommend eating a healthy diet, cutting back on processed products and opting for environmentally friendly alternatives as self-improvement methods, which bear resemblance to the popular lifestyle trends such as following an alkaline diet, doing water fasting and adopting minimalism. Their emphasis on bodily detox assumes a "dirty" body that should regularly be cleansed to attain a "better" version of the self and to construct a physically and spiritually "healthy" subject.
Paper short abstract:
The anti-aging industry is based on a widespread idea that the aging process can be managed by individuals. However, we must consider the relevance of several social determinants that delimit the ease of access to this new types of Biotechnology that possibly introduce new forms of inequality.
Paper long abstract:
In the context of the European Union, demographic aging is considered a serious challenge to economic sustainability and social cohesion, motivating the adoption of public policies aimed at promoting active aging, as a possible solution. One can also witness, in recent years, a strong emphasis on personal responsibility for health in order to ensure a healthy aging, which is intended to reduce costs with regard to social protection and public spending with the health of the elderly. And, in fact, the research I've carried out with the elderly reveals the prevalence of a "busy ethic", which leads them to constantly reassert their capability to perform multiple tasks of social value, dodging the ageist consideration that they might be a "weight for society."
In this context of personal responsibility for the aging process, the use of biotechnologies of enhancement can represent an important advantage in a competitive society. Accordingly, one can see in recent years the development of an industry of anti-aging products and medical procedures, based on a widespread idea that the aging process can be managed by individuals in order to be healthy and successful. However, we must consider the relevance of several social determinants that delimit the ease of access to this type of Biotechnology, possibly introducing new forms of inequality that should be analyzed from a Bioethical point of view, anchored in the Social Sciences.
Paper short abstract:
Microdosing - the practice of regularly taking very small doses of psychedelic drugs - has emerged in the last few years as a fast growing self-enhancement practice in Europe and the US. This paper offers an ethnographic account of a user-generated microdosing trial held in Lisbon.
Paper long abstract:
Psychedelic drugs are regaining scientific interest since the 1990s, with a growing number of studies exploring their applications in therapeutic settings and as self-enhancement substances. The compounds of this family - both natural occurring and synthetic - are illegal internationally since the late 1960s though, making it hard for studies on human subjects to be approved. As a consequence, some researchers are exploring peculiar forms of remotely-coordinated, user-generated trials, relying on an international network of psychedelic self experimenters.
In November 2019, a group of people in Lisbon joined one of these studies, proposed by the Beckley Foundation / Imperial College (UK) with the goal of comparing the effect of psychedelic microdosing with placebo response. The experiment consisted in taking four capsules per week during four weeks: twelve of them contained placebo, while four contained a very small dose (8-12ug) of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD). Following an online manual, the capsules were prepared in a way that each participant was not aware of whether he/she was taking a dose on a specific day (a procedure called "self-blinding"), but this information could be disclosed at the end of the study. Along the weeks, questionnaires and cognitive tests were regularly undertaken by the participants through an online platform.
The author followed this collective experiment - from its set up to the release of individual data - and realised an extended focus group with the participants, sharing thoughts and feelings on topics like cognitive enhancement, performance at work, self-observation, expectation and conditioning.
Paper short abstract:
I explore the experiences of people in the San Francisco Bay Area who sell and consume health products as contractors for a multi-level marketing company. They appeal to and critique capitalism in their vision of "health". I argue that self-improvement is inseparable from financial aspirations
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the experiences of people in the San Francisco Bay Area who sell and consume health products as part of their work as independent contractors of a multi-level marketing (MLM) company. These people consider it a necessity to control their own health through rigorous consumption of nutritional supplements and fasting practices. However, their participation in MLM is not only an effort to improve their bodies, but also an attempt to gain financial stability. Because of the way that the MLM compensation structure is designed, participants earn money not only by selling the nutritional products but also by recruiting other people to join their network. Their personal health aspirations and concerns are thus embedded in larger forms of capitalism and market logic. Even as they turn to market-based solutions for bodily and financial self-improvement, these MLM contractors frequently express their dissatisfaction with economic decline and growing inequality in the United States, which they perceive to be a result of corporate greed. By attending to how these individuals both appeal to and critique capitalism in their vision of the "healthy" body, this article contributes to an anthropological understanding of how bodily self-improvement practices are inseparable from financial aspirations and precarity
Paper short abstract:
Global psy technologies migrate into the digital medium. This paper focuses on new ways of self-production, (self) care and affective labor enabled through digital psy-technologies, situated in specific local social, moral (and spiritual) worlds.
Paper long abstract:
Stress, tension and depression range high in India's megacities. Global psy are technologies related to psychological expertise of knowing, managing and optimizing the distressed self. They not only pervade business and management, education and private lives but also increasingly migrate into the digital medium. Indian entrepreneurs have discovered the commercial value of digitally catering for mental distress for the young, tech-savvy Indian 'netizens'. Providing digital affective work or self-care, they promise nonstigmatized, anonymous and 24/7 services outside the clinic, based on connecting customers to online counselors or artificial intelligence. How do digital technologies and their affordances contribute to a new norm in India's rising Middle Class to be mentally well, happy, productive and consuming? In which way are they part of a neoliberal government of life? Does digital mental health expand the medicalization of distress and suffering, or does it offer something like a counter clinic? Which new socialities emerge through digital mental health technologies in daily lives? While optimists celebrate digital (self) care as new forms of agency, empowerment and (self)care, critics are concerned about (self)surveillance and control, depolitization, medicalization and de-humanization of care. Building on fieldwork in Bangalore and theories from medical and political anthropology and STS, this paper will move beyond normative debates and focus on new ways of self-production, (self) care and affective labor enabled through digital psy-technologies, situated in specific local social, moral (and spiritual) worlds.
Paper short abstract:
Greek society has embraced Botox and other non-surgical cosmetic treatments to an unprecedented degree. However, Greek women have been very resistant to other drugs, like the contraceptive pill. How, then, can we understand the phenomenon of cosmetic medicine's "domestication" in Greece?
Paper long abstract:
In Greece, cosmetic treatments (which I elsewhere call "cosmetic pharmaceuticals" or simply "cosmeceuticals") have become not only normalized but domesticated (Cook and Dwyer, 2017). Botox especially has been 'disinhibited' to the extent that it is discussed openly among friends and acquaintances. Yet, given how resistant Greek women have been to some other drugs such as the contraceptive pill (Paxson, 2004), how can the anthropologist account for this 'domestication'?
To understand the phenomenon, one must look at the importance of appearance in Greek society, and how the way one carries themselves in public is regarded as a highly serious matter. Presenting a cared-after appearance is not necessarily a sign of 'vanity' or 'superficiality' but, contrarily, carries significant and positive connotations about one's own dignity and self-respect. A "good appearance" is a sign of a civilized way of life, as opposed to a "vulgar" disposition. And wrinkles, as some of my informants reasoned, make the female face vulgar and grotesque.
Secondly, I saw that Botox and other cosmeceuticals encapsulate opposite qualities to the contraceptive pill, and therefore it is not surprising that Greek women readily accept the former and distrust the latter. Contrarily to the pill, with is seen as reformatory and disciplining in character, Botox has acquired a kind of "life-giving" quality amongst Greek women. For many, it was even seen as an antidote to financial crisis, depression and stress, pointing towards Botox's rise as a "miraculous" drug, which has the capacity to 'heal'.
Paper short abstract:
We could argue that the consumption of performance enhancers among students can be traced back to values cherished in neoliberalizing societies. However, it is important to seek a nuanced comprehension; go beyond the fact that these are imbricated in broader discourses of achievement and efficiency.
Paper long abstract:
It seems plausible to argue that the consumption of the so-called performance enhancers among students in Dutch academic environments can be traced back to values cherished in neoliberalizing societies. However, if we are to understand how these young adults make use and make sense out of these cultural technologies it is important to go beyond the fact that these are imbricated in broader discourses of achievement, focus, and efficiency. Previous approaches often lack a nuanced comprehension on how such practices of consumption might be shaping people's (internal) lifeworlds. Therefore, this thesis advocates for the need to engage with collaborative methodologies that are willing to deal with the unobservable realms of life. Revolting around the use of cognitive enhancers, the following ethnography explores how said sector of the young population contests and takes part in the (co)construction of their daily presents and futures while they learn to navigate in environments often times perceived as demanding. In order to grasp the complexity surrounding the consumption of performance enhancing drugs, this thesis will be built upon four main axes (internal lifeworlds, performance consumptions, the achievement society, ideas of the future) which cannot be understood independently and will fill in the gaps between one another. This is the result of three months of ethnographic fieldwork and was possible thanks to the contributions of a group of students who engaged in the exploration of their own internal lifeworlds.
Paper short abstract:
Europeanness in not something that simply is, but rather something to be done. In this paper I explore the conflation of whiteness and Europeanness in the particular kind of 'aesthetic self-improvement' literally called by Elizabeth Wissinger (2015) the 'European glamour labour'.
Paper long abstract:
How is the idea of Europeanness embodied through imaginaries, projects or practices of beauty? Taking this idea of "beauty under construction", in this paper I enquire into the "making up" of Europeanness, through stylization, cosmetic alteration and biomedical practices. Following postcolonial, queer-feminist, and race-critical perspectives, I observe how the intersecting categories of race, class, and gender operate in relation to hegemonic beauty standards, racializing 'European but not-European-enough' bodies, and hierarchizing the 'new' and or 'peripheral' populations within Europe. These imaginaries - that continues to shape European everyday realities - are based on a silent but powerful discourse on European cultural hierarchies that conflates essentialised national representations with lifestyles, class, sexuality, beauty ideals, and skin color.