Foucault News

Kerr, R.
The role of science in the practice of talent identification: a case study from gymnastics in New Zealand
(2018) Sport in Society, pp. 1-15. Article in Press.

DOI: 10.1080/17430437.2018.1435032

Abstract
Talent identification is an example of a practice where ‘scientism threatens to engulf us all.’ Talent identification and development are areas where models perceived to be scientific have been uncritically adopted into sporting practice due to the belief that they represent best practice. In this article, I track the changing talent identification systems adopted in the sport of rhythmic gymnastics in New Zealand over approximately 20 years. The findings revealed that those in decision-making positions originally adopted the perspective of scientism in introducing a physical ability test which they perceived to have scientific value. However, scientific testing was later removed owing to the now empowered gymnastics coaches drawing on what Foucault referred to as local knowledge, acquired through their own experiences. Their experiences resulted in the coaches believing in the importance of what Latour described as social practices being more significant in talent identification than scientific testing. © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Index Keywords
article, decision making, drawing, human, human experiment, New Zealand, physical capacity, sport

Vegter, M.W.
Towards precision medicine; a new biomedical cosmology
(2018) Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, pp. 1-14. Article in Press.

DOI: 10.1007/s11019-018-9828-z

Abstract
Precision Medicine has become a common label for data-intensive and patient-driven biomedical research. Its intended future is reflected in endeavours such as the Precision Medicine Initiative in the USA. This article addresses the question whether it is possible to discern a new ‘medical cosmology’ in Precision Medicine, a concept that was developed by Nicholas Jewson to describe comprehensive transformations involving various dimensions of biomedical knowledge and practice, such as vocabularies, the roles of patients and physicians and the conceptualisation of disease. Subsequently, I will elaborate my assessment of the features of Precision Medicine with the help of Michel Foucault, by exploring how precision medicine involves a transformation along three axes: the axis of biomedical knowledge, of biomedical power and of the patient as a self. Patients are encouraged to become the managers of their own health status, while the medical domain is reframed as a data-sharing community, characterised by changing power relationships between providers and patients, producers and consumers. While the emerging Precision Medicine cosmology may surpass existing knowledge frameworks; it obscures previous traditions and reduces research-subjects to mere data. This in turn, means that the individual is both subjected to the neoliberal demand to share personal information, and at the same time has acquired the positive ‘right’ to become a member of the data-sharing community. The subject has to constantly negotiate the meaning of his or her data, which can either enable self-expression, or function as a commanding Superego. © 2018 The Author(s)

Author Keywords
Big data; Foucault; Medical cosmology; Participatory medicine; Precision medicine; ’All-of-Us’ research program

Heike Delitz, Architectural Modes of Collective Existence: Architectural Sociology as a Comparative Social Theory (2018) Cultural Sociology, 12 (1), pp. 37-57.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975517718435

Abstract
This article proposes a cross-cultural, comparative architectural sociology as a means of sociological analysis. It also emphasizes the social positivity of architecture. After a short overview of architectural sociology and its history, the article outlines a sociological theory which sees architecture and related practices as a constitutive ‘mode of collective existence’. The article argues that architecture (in a broad sense) is not a mere ‘reflection’ or ‘mirror’ of society, but rather a constitutive and transformative medium of the imaginary institution of society (Castoriadis), its assemblages (Deleuze), as well as its subjects (Foucault). In other words, it claims that architecture is a material and symbolic ‘mode’ through which societies and individuals are constituted and transformed. As architecture is a cultural technique, which is primarily enacted in relation to bodies, perceptions and affects (rather than in a discursive, reflective way), the social effects of architecture can best be understood and analysed through a comparative lens. Finally, therefore, the article unfolds a tableau of diverse architectural modes of collective existence, thus providing an overview of different socio-architectural constellations. Such a comparative and synchronical view of different societies allows for a sociology of architecture which analyses architectural transformations – both historical and contemporary. © 2017, © The Author(s) 2017.

Author Keywords
comparative method; material culture; post-foundational thought; social imaginary; sociological theory; sociology of architecture; theory of society