Biological citizenship: New spaces of hope and fear
Dr Helen Keane, Australian National University:
The biopolitics of inattention and its treatment: ADHD in children and adults
ABSTRACT Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder was originally conceptualised as a condition of childhood, identified by the disruptive behaviour and poor academic performance of sufferers. The DSM-IV diagnostic criteria require symptoms to be present by seven years of age, and it was believed that most affected children outgrew the disorder. But since the 1990s ADHD has been refigured as a 'life-span' condition, with increasing numbers of adults being diagnosed and treated with stimulant medication.Although adult and pediatric ADHD are presented in medical discourse as a single disorder, with developmental changes accounting for their distinct symptomologies, this paper suggests that the ADHD child and the ADHD adult are constructed as very different forms of neurobiological subjectivity, requiring contrasting forms of management. In children the emphasis is on providing the self-control and time awareness that the child is seen to lack, in adults the emphasis is on the development of structures and systems that will enable the achievement of self-chosen goals. These differences reveal the ambivalent relationship of children to citizenship: they have responsibilities and rights but are also envisaged as not-yet-adults requiring socialisation and care. In their 2005 account of biological citizenship Rose and Novas refer in passing to ADHD support groups but the issue of children’s bio-subjectivity and capacities for active citizenship is not addressed. This paper concludes with an exploration of the relationship between the figure of the child and the discourses of biological citizenship.
Dr Kane Race, University of Sydney:
Exceptional sex: how drugs have come to mediate sex in gay discourse
ABSTRACT The use of illicit drugs has monopolized recent discussions of HIV prevention among gay men, with drugs such as crystal methamphetamine proposed as a principle explanation for sexual risk-taking and HIV infection in both popular and social scientific discourse. But this positioning of risk as an essentialised effect of drug use neglects a consideration of the social conditions and cultural assemblages within which particular sex and drug practices, and their effects, take shape. While the capacity of stimulants to enhance sexual pleasure was readily apparent to many participants in the gay dance party culture of the 1990s, the instrumental use of drugs specifically for sex has recently become a more prominent feature of gay discourse in North America and Australia. This paper considers how prevailing paradigms of public health and psychosocial discourse could be contributing to this situation, raising critical questions for conceptions of 'biological citizenship'.Associate Professor Catherine Waldby, University of Sydney:
Biobanks, biovalue and biological citizenship
The development of genomics has dramatically expanded the scope of genetic research, and collections of genetic biosamples have proliferated in countries with active genomics research programs. In this presentation I will explore a particular kind of collection, the national biobank, a facility which aims to enrol the participation of a high proportion of a given national population. National biobanks have generated an extensive social science literature focused primarily on evaluating their possibilities for scientific or biological citizenship. However I will argue that a focus on citizenship is inadequate, because it fails to theorise the political economy of biobanks, the global economic aspirations of contemporary neo-liberalising states and the role played by populations in the generation of pharmaceutical capital value or biovalue.BOOK LAUNCH
Following the seminar please join us as we launch Mark Davis' new book Sex, Technology and Public Health. Launching the book will be Professor Gary Dowsett of the Australian Research Centre for Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University.
Convened by:
Dr Suzanne Fraser (Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research)
Suzanne.Fraser@arts.monash.edu.au
Dr Mark Davis (Sociology)
Mark.Davis@arts.monash.edu.au