Between empowerment and self-discipline: governing patients' conduct through technological self-care

Petrakaki, Dimitra; Hilberg, Eva; Waring, Justin

Abstract

Recent health policy renders patients increasingly responsible for managing their health via digital technology such as health apps and online patient platforms. This paper discusses underlying tensions between empowerment and self-discipline embodied in discourses of technological self-care. It presents findings from documentary analysis and interviews with key players in the English digital health context including policy makers, health designers and patient organisations. We show how discourses ascribe to patients an enterprising identity, which is inculcated with economic interests and engenders self-discipline. However, this reading does not capture all implications of technological self-care. A governmentality lens also shows that technological self-care opens up the potential for a de-centring of medical knowledge and its subsequent communalization. The paper contributes to Foucauldian healthcare scholarship by showing how technology could engender agential actions that operate at the margins of an enterprising discourse.

Citation

Petrakaki, D., Hilberg, E., & Waring, J. (2018). Between empowerment and self-discipline: governing patients' conduct through technological self-care. Social Science and Medicine, 213, (146-153). doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.07.043. ISSN 0277-9536

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 25, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Jul 26, 2018
• Publication Date: Sep 30, 2018
• Deposit Date: Aug 1, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 1, 2018
• Journal: Social Science & Medicine
• Print ISSN: 0277-9536
• Electronic ISSN: 0277-9536
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 213
• Pages: 146-153
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.07.043
• Keywords: History and Philosophy of Science; Health(social science)
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/889433