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Between empowerment and self-discipline: governing patients' conduct through technological self-care
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-20, 14:17 authored by Dimitra PetrakakiDimitra Petrakaki, Eva Hilberg, Justin WaringRecent 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.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Published version
Journal
Social Science and MedicineISSN
0277-9536Publisher
ElsevierExternal DOI
Volume
213Page range
146-153Department affiliated with
- Management Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes