This thesis deals with the phenomenon of sleeping and its variations. It is the outcome of long-term field research and participant observation. At the core of my research is a sleep laboratory from which I freely venture into other fields. I draw not only on a number of interviews and observations but I also reflect upon my own physical experience with various sleeping modes or gained from the position of both the subject and supervisor of sleep medicine. By way of employing qualitative research methods I map the sphere of sleep as a social construct and its embedding as a value. I furthermore try to see how much the social construct of sleep can be influenced. I focus on the issue of the current value of sleep and the impacts on the formation of the social construct of sleep by society and a specific time period. I try to switch the perspective, too: my goal is to identify whether sleep is such a resistant phenomenon on the grounds of its biological essence so that it can withstand or at least moderate these forces. I take a theoretical recourse to medical anthropology and use it as my initial perspective. I employ the concept of biopower and risk society, as well as the methodology of carnal anthropology. Due to its inconspicuousness and hiddenness, I consider the phenomenon of sleep and other...

The thesis deals with intelligence, as a socio-cultural concept that has its own history and development. It thus deconstructs the naturalized notions of a biological "essence" of intelligence, which has not been proved to this day. The scientific and philosophical modes of thinking, that participated in both "inventing" intelligence and its forming, are introduced. The analysis of the primary sources enables to compass the reflection of these dominant scientific approaches towards intelligence in the Czech expert discourses. The thesis also reflects on the important role intelligence has in the assessment of mental norm and disability, and it thus analyses the perception of disability during the defined historical period, including the discourse analysis of the different representations of disability. Key words Intelligence, disability, craniometry, eugenics, pedagogy, medicine, biopower.

Aim of this paper is to explain used forced feeding of hunger strikers at the U.S. Prison at Guantanamo, when this technique is prohibited in international law. I used the sociology of Michel Foucault, who devoted himself to the topic of imprisonment. His work is often used in the interpretation of what is happening at Guantanamo. With the help of these interpretations were generated two hypotheses. I tested compiled hypotheses in study of literature including news articles, research papers, reports of human rights organizations, legislation, interviews with former camp detainees or camp staff etc. We conclude that the prisoners at Guantanamo are not fed to be kept alive, but rather to be punished for a hunger strike protest. The conclusions highlight a new form of relationship between state and its citizens, which calls for more comprehensive analysis of current form of government, which we are not able to cover in this work.

Nikola Žáková The Biomedical Construction of "Health" Thesis Prague 2014 ABSTRACT This thesis focuses on the analysis of biomedical categories of "health", "illness" and "prevention". The aim is to determine how these categories are used in two case studies - "diabethes melitus 2" and "hepatitis B, C" - in the periods 1989-1990, 1995-1996, 2002-2003 , 2006-2007. "Health" is currently conceived as a "norm" that we should strive to meet. Through categories of "health", "disease", "prevention" and through the action of the discourse of risk and individual responsibility (for health of ourself and also for the health of the entire community), is desribed how the normative social expectations about health are shaped in the medical articles. We constantly monitor our health and we manage our behavior according to the potential "risks". This thesis examines how the institution of medicine influences the lives of individuals in society, on the basis of content analysis and discourse analysis of case studies from the renowned medical journal Časopis lékařů českých. Keywords: health, disease, prevention, risk, biopower, (self)disciplining

By examining the allegorical ways which bodies are produced and their movement controlled within J.M. Coetzee’s works, Waiting for the Barbarians and Disgrace, this thesis follows the shifting paradigm of power from apartheid’s presumption of unity of the state to the rainbow nation’s constitutional declaration that its citizens are “unified in [their] diversity” and equal under the law. In my chapter on Waiting for the Barbarians, I argue that the state creates a fiction of unity which allows the state to invoke claims of emergency and suspend the law; within this suspension, an economy of sacrifice functions to cleanse the state of its misdeeds in the eyes of its citizens. In my second chapter, I argue that Disgrace’s character’s dramatize how legal equality and rituals of reconciliation fail to create unity and instead inscribes the characters into a secular economy of sacrifice and cycles of violent enmity.

In the early 2000s, the idea of an “autism epidemic” spurred State action to expand research into autism’s causes and corresponding efforts at prevention, an effort overseen by the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC). However, the language of autism prevention in the IACC’s Strategic Plan changed dramatically between 2009 and 2017, from the wholesale prevention of autism to prevention of its “most disabling aspects.” Through an analysis of IACC meeting transcripts during this timeframe, I trace the process by which this language was changed, with particular attention to the often-conflicting ways in which autistic self-advocates and non-autistic parent advocates framed autism itself. These conflicting conceptions of autism led to conflicting biological citizenship claims regarding the value of prevention, to which the IACC responded by attempting to appease both sides through language without substantially changing its aims. This process highlights the importance of framing in biological citizenship claims, as well as the persistence of the biopower State in asserting the need to regulate the existence of disability in the population.

In 2015, local authorities in Malmö, Sweden, evicted an informal settlement, the Sorgenfri Camp, in which mostly Romani EU migrants were living. No housing alternatives were offered. Critics saw this as a human rights violation, but the municipality found that the people were not entitled to the rights in question. This thesis explores these different rights discourses by tracing their underlying power relations through a Foucauldian discourse analysis. Foucault’s understanding of biopower, rights, and subjectivity is applied. The findings suggest that the municipality saw the camp residents as not entitled to housing rights because they were seen as occupants threatening private property and foreign EU citizens burdening the local welfare system, while critics resisted such rights denial by highlighting the persons’ humanity and vulnerability as Roma people. All actors where thus concerned with the biopolitical responsibility of the municipality to protect the life of the population, but saw this realized either through denying or granting rights to the camp residents, depending on what kinds of subjects they were seen as. This study exemplifies the power struggle through which people’s entitlements to rights are constantly produced, reproduced, and challenged as they are placed into different subject positions.

This dissertation explores how discourses surrounding race and economics inform the way in which videogame creators understand their world and use that understanding to create content. Employing a Foucauldian discourse analysis, the content of two videogames, Skyrim and Max Payne 3, were analyzed. The analysis of Skyrim revealed that race is constructed as an inherently biological phenomenon. Moreover, culture is constructed as emerging from biology. The analysis of Max Payne 3 revealed that capitalism grounds the construction of race so that biology and culture serves to justify the economic position of light-skinned and dark-skinned Brazilians. These constructions come from various sources such as the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and film noir. The dissertation also interviews videogame developers using semi-structured interviews to examine the extent to which content creators are aware of these discourses and how industry norms and economics affect those discourses. Videogame developers revealed that these discourses stem from a market pressure to make videogame narratives understandable and sellable. / Media & Communication

I Sverige finns det studiersom rör media och dess sätt att framställa olika fenomen, men ingen studie ommedias framställning av sjukdomen endometrios. Endometrios är en sjukdom som drabbar kvinnor ialla åldrar världen över och som det råder olika kunskaper om beroende på varti världen du är. I Sverige är det en relativt okänd sjukdom trots att det finnsrunt 200,000 kvinnor som bär på sjukdomen. Media är en stor kommunikationskanaloch syftet med studien är att beskriva hur media konstruerar sjukdomenendometrios. Genom en kritisk diskursanalys analyseras och presenteras resultatav 30 artiklar från dags- och kvällspress i Sverige och resultatet nås genomFaircloughs förklarande kritik samt tredimensionell modell. Analysen kantadesav socialkonstruktionistisk teori samt begrepp rörande genus, då genus och könblir aktuellt i en studie om sjukdom som enbart rör kvinnor. Resultatet visaratt endometrios framställs vara en allvarlig sjukdom, men inte tillräckligtallvarlig för makthavare i samhället då endometrios är en sjukdom som drabbarkvinnor. Det är den dolda kvinnosjukdomen. / In Sweden, there are studies relating to themedia and its way of producing different phenomenon, but no study about themedia's representation of the disease endometriosis. Endometriosis is a diseasethat affects women of all ages around the world and that there are differentknowledge of the disease depending on where in the world you are. In Sweden itis a relatively unknown disease despite there being around 200,000 women whocarry the disease. Media is a great communication channel and the purpose of thestudy is to describe how the media constructs the disease endometriosis.Through a critical discourse analysis 30 articles from newspapers in Sweden are analyzed and presented and the result reached byFaircloughs explanatory criticism as well as three-dimensional model. Theanalysis was marred by social constructionist theory and concepts relating togender, because gender and sex becomes interessting in a study about thedisease that only concerns women. The results show that endometriosis isprepared to be a serious disease, but not serious enough for those in power insociety when endometriosis is a disease that affects women. It is the hiddenwomen's disease.

[pt] O presente estudo tem como objetivo realizar uma análise genealógica do discurso oficial sobre drogas no Rio de Janeiro, a partir do realinhamento da Política Nacional Antidrogas parentese PNAD barra2002 parentese e da inserção do Conselho Estadual Antidrogas parenteseCEAD prentese na estrutura da Secretaria de Estado de Assistência Social e Direitos Humanos parentese SEASDH prentese. Tendo por base a teoria foucaultiana sobre poder barra saber, realizamos uma pesquisa documental no acervo do CEAD sob a ótica das seguintes análises: a construção do discurso sobre drogas e sua inserção em regimes de verdade; a formulação do discurso sobre drogas em território brasileiro e o processo de aproximação, no Rio de Janeiro, entre a SEASDH e o realinhamento da PNAD barra 2002. As conclusões apontam para a manutenção de diversos elementos do caráter antidrogas no discurso oficial brasileiro e para um descompasso entre a política nacional e a estadual, que passa por processo de adequação aos preceitos de Política Pública estabelecidos pela Constituição Federal de 1988. / [en] The present study aims to conduct a genealogical analysis of official discourse on drugs in Rio de Janeiro, from the realignment of National Anti-Drug Policy PNAD/2002 and the insertion of the State Council Anti-Drug CEAD in the structure of the Secretariat of State Social Welfare and Human Rights SEASDH. Based on the Foucault´s theory - power / knowledge - conducted documentary research in the archives of CEAD with the following analytical perspectives: the construction of discourse about drugs and their inclusion in systems of truth; formulation of discourse about drugs in Brazil and in the process approach, in Rio de Janeiro, between SEASDH and realignment of PNAD/2002. The conclusions point to the maintenance of various elements of the official Brazilian anti-drug discourse and a mismatch between National and state politics, which undergoes a process of adaptation to the precepts of Public Policy established by the Constitution of 1988.