The techniques, therapeutic agents, and technologies of medicine have changed in both evolutionary and revolutionary ways across the period we have covered thus far. But have these changes been sufficient to change the nature, aims, or expectations of medicine itself? This week we will consider one key cultural intersection as a window through which to explore this question: biosurveillance. The phenomenon of watching, scrutinising and measuring the human body is, of course, far from novel. The healing arts in every culture have been rooted in the methodical observation and interpretation of healthy and sick bodies and the natural and built environments which surround and influence them. So is there anything fundamentally different about the use of biomedical tools and categories in society today? And if so, what does this mean for 'medicine' itself? This topic will also allow us to consider approaches and ideas from disability studies.

Required readings:

Giovanni Rubeis, ‘Liquid Health. Medicine in the age of surveillance capitalism’, Social Science & Medicine 322 (April 2023), 115810, https://0-doi-org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115810.

 

Nikolas Rose, The Politics of Life Itself (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), Introduction and Chapter 1, pp. 1-40

 

Jay Dolmage, Disabled on Arrival: The Rhetorical Construction of Disability and Race at Ellis Island', Lennard J. Davis; Rebecca Sanchez; Alexander Luft, eds, The Disability Studies Reader, sixth edition (Taylor and Francis, 2021), 139-196. Hint: Compare this piece with any of the starred readings below to address the question about change!

 

Further Reading

*Katja Franko Aas, (2006). ‘The body does not lie’: Identity, risk and trust in technoculture. Crime, Media, Culture, 2(2), 143-158. https://0-doi-org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/10.1177/1741659006065401

 

Clare Anderson, Legible Bodies: Race, Criminality and Colonialism in South Asia

 

*Séverine Awenengo Dalberto and Richard Banégas, eds, Identification and Citizenship in Africa Biometrics, the Documentary State and Bureaucratic Writings of the Self (London: Routledge, 2021 Open Access. doi:10.4324/9781003053293.

 

Jacqueline Nassy Brown; The Racial State of the Everyday and the Making of Ethnic Statistics in Britain. Social Text 1 March 2009; 27 (1 (98)): 11–36. doi: https://0-doi-org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/10.1215/01642472-2008-015Link opens in a new window

 

Lennard J Davis, 'Disability, Normality and Power', Lennard J. Davis; Rebecca Sanchez; Alexander Luft, eds, The Disability Studies Reader, sixth edition (Taylor and Francis, 2021), pp. 3-15. Also a great demonstration of how to use literary fiction in historical research!

 

*Yulia Egorova, “The Substance That Empowers? DNA in South Asia.” Contemporary South Asia 21 (3) 2013: 291–303. doi:10.1080/09584935.2013.826627

 

*Janet Ihenacho, The Effect of the Introduction of DNA Testing on Immigration Control Procedures: Case Studies of Bangladeshi Families, Research Paper In Ethnic Relations No.16, (Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations University of Warwick, November 1991).

 

Josh Lauer and Kenneth Lipartito, Surveillance Capitalism in America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022). https://0-doi-org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/10.9783/9780812299946 

Note for Students: This Edited volume has a number of fantastic chapters in it exploring everything from the counter-surveillance practices of abolitionists to the stealthy information gathering of 1930s hotels, to the sexual policing of gay spaces in 1930s America to the use of those darned cookies… Very US focused, but offers great examples for how to add historical depth to your analyses.

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• Nicholas Mirzoeff, ‘Artificial vision, white space and racial surveillance capitalism’, AI & Society 36, 1295–1305 (2021). https://0-doi-org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/10.1007/s00146-020-01095-8

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• Ingunn Moser, “AGAINST NORMALISATION: Subverting Norms of Ability and Disability.” Science as Culture 9 (2) 2000: 201–40. doi:10.1080/713695234.

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• Jeff Nagy, ‘Autism and the making of emotion AI: Disability as resource for surveillance capitalism’ New Media & Society, 0(0) (2022).. https://0-doi-org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/10.1177/14614448221109550

   

Richard K Popp, ‘Chapter 2. The Information Bazaar: Mail- Order Magazines and the Gilded Age Trade in Consumer Data’, in J Lauer, and K. Lipartito, eds, Surveillance Capitalism in America, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022), pp. 46-64. https://0-doi-org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/10.9783/9780812299946-003

 

*Richard Tutton, Christine Hauskeller, and Steve Sturdy. 2014. “Suspect Technologies: Forensic Testing of Asylum Seekers at the UK Border.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 37 (5): 738–52. doi:10.1080/01419870.2013.870667.

 

• Shoshana Zubhoff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for the Future at the New Frontier of Power (e-book). Definition and Chapter 2