Notes on Bio-History: Michel Foucault and the Political Economy of Health

• Authors: Xenia Chiaramonte

Title variants

Uwagi o biohistorii: Michel Foucault i ekonomia polityczna zdrowia

Abstracts

PL

W październiku 1974 roku Foucault wygłosił w Rio de Janeiro trzy wykłady na temat archeologii leczenia. W niniejszej pracy skomentowane zostaną dwa pierwsze, opublikowane kilka lat później we Francji pod oryginalnymi tytułami: Crise de la médicine ou crise de l’antimédicine? oraz La naissance de la médicine sociale. Biohistoria to termin, którego Michel Foucault używa początkowo – w drugim wykładzie – w odniesieniu do skutków silnej interwencji medycznej na poziomie biologicznym, która rozpoczęła się w XVIII wieku i pozostawiła ślad, który jest nadal widoczny w naszym społeczeństwie. To właśnie przy tej okazji Foucault wprowadza do swojej analizy pojęcie, a raczej przedrostek „bio-”, i to właśnie tutaj – jak zostanie pokazane w niniejszej pracy – możemy prześledzić pierwotne znaczenie terminu, który dziś wydaje się raczej nadużywany, jak też znaleźć wartościowe ramy analityczne dla przemyślanego podejścia do badań nad relacją pomiędzy medycyną a dynamiką władzy.

EN

In October 1974, Foucault gave three lectures in Rio de Janeiro on the archeology of the cure. This piece will comment on the first two, published a few years later in France with the original titles: Crise de la médicine ou crise de l’antimédicine? and La naissance de la médicine sociale. Bio-history is the term Michel Foucault initially uses – in the second lecture – to refer to the effect of the strong medical intervention at the biological level that started in the eighteenth century and has left a trace that is still visible in our society. It is on this occasion that Foucault introduces the concept, or rather the prefix “bio-” in his analysis, and it is here – as my reflections intend to demonstrate – that we may trace the original meaning of a term that today seems rather abused and find a valuable analytical framework for a cogent approach to the relationship between medicine and power dynamics.

Keywords

PL

biohistoria; medycyna społeczna; Michel Foucault; zdrowie publiczne; instytucje; pandemia COVID-19

EN

bio-history; social medicine; Michel Foucault; public health; institutions; COVID-19 pandemics

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Iuridica
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 96
• Pages: 111-123

Dates

published

2021

Contributors

author

Xenia Chiaramonte

• Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Berlin

• https://orcid.org/0000000150740398

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Identifiers

DOI

10.18778/0208-6069.96.09

Biblioteka Nauki

2034107