BSA Medical Sociology Group Annual Conference

Activity: Talk or presentationInvited talk

Description

Classificatory struggles and the importance of illuminating
contemporary biopolitics for the future of medical sociology

 In this plenary I illuminate further some of the substantive,
methodological and theoretical issues addressed in my book, "The Gene,
the Clinic and the Family: Diagnosing Dysmorphology, Reviving Medical
Dominance". Building on these issues, I go on to elaborate their
relevance for thinking with care about contemporary biopolitics and
the future of medicine. In the context of late capitalism and its
culture of endless reform (Latimer & Munro 2015), I suggest how
medical sociology needs to continuously address the specifics of
‘world-making’ in order to keep a politics of imagination that is open
and critical (Latimer & Skeggs 2011). Illuminating the specifics of
‘world-making’ in the clinic, in the laboratory and in the
institutions that deliver health care opens up debate to how
‘classificatory struggles’ (Tyler 2015) are elicited and enacted in
order to reproduce, resist or transform assymetrical social relations
and regimes of value.
PeriodSept 2014
Event titleBSA Medical Sociology Group Annual Conference
Event typeConference
LocationChester, United KingdomShow on map

Keywords

  • the new genetics
  • the clinic
  • the family
  • biopolitics