Eä Journal's vol. 7 is now online with a special double issue on "Healthism & Self-Care: Reconfiguring Body & Life through Science & Technology", developed as a joint project between Eä Journal and researchers from CETCOPRA (Centre for Research on Technology, Knowledge and Practices), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Institut Mines Télécom and Université Paris Descartes (France). The edition counts with the support of Alliance Française in Buenos Aires and the Institut Français and the Ambassade de France in Argentina.
"Over the past decades technological innovations such as digital technologies, genomics, and bio-nanotechnology have been promoted as means of improving “health”, a term that was broadly defined by the World Health Organization in 1946 as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Access to “molecules of life”, miniaturized diagnostic devices or health-related connected objects have greatly intensified and accelerated the pace of production, circulation and sharing of health data, thereby reconfiguring the traditional relationship between medicine and society.
While “biomedicalization” is often used as a term of reference to describe this social phenomenon, we choose to refer to the concept of “healthism” (“santéisme” in French) as it underscores the current development and dissemination of individual practices of biomedical techniques. People’s engagement with, or even appropriation of, new medical technologies and knowledge, both inside and outside medical institutions, have led to the opening of frontier zones of expertise and to the development of borderline practices, half-way between medicine and self-care, resulting in the multiplication of patient figures across biomedical platforms, processes and technologies. These major shifts in medical practices require a critical examination. Healthism must also be questionned if we are to gain a better view of the reconfiguration of the body and life through science and technology today." (Bardy, Laurent y Turrini, 2015, p. 1)
This special edition emerges from academic discussions that took place in the Healthism and Self Care International Conference, held in Paris in December 2014. The topics discussed here show emerging issues and current phenomena at the intersection between health, society, science and technology, providing different perspectives on practices and techniques that assign a new role for patients and users within new configurations of the relationship between disease-health-wellness.
This special edition features works operating in the tension between subjects' individual autonomy and biomedical disciplinary control, addressing issues such as digital health (e-health), patient empowerment, telemedicine, self-quantification technologies and practices, doping, self-care practices, genetic tests available for consumers, risk management, use of digital technologies and health, among others.
Contribute to this issue: Philippe Bardy, Gérard Dubey, Pascal Ducournau, Anna Harris, Susan E. Kelly, Justine Laurent, Ilana Löwy, Jacques Lucas, Federica Lucivero, Ivo Matthuis, Antonio Maturo, Dominique Memmi, Nelly Oudshoorn, Patrick Trabal, Mauro Turrini, and Sally Wyatt.
We invite you to go over the contents of this new issue:
