The aim of this dissertation is to reflect on technologies of the self, a term coined by Michel Foucault to study western practices of self-formation. Influenced by his work on subjectivity and by Science and Technology Studies (STS), I explore two forms of meditation – Vipassana meditation in the tradition of S.N. Goenka and Thich Nhat Hanh’s practices of mindfulness – in order to analyze the entanglements between technologies, associations and subjectivity. Two research questions guided this study. First, how do Vipassana and Zen assemblages bring forth subjective transformations? Second, what are the politics of meditation practice, considering that Vipassana and Zen perform particular paradigms of subjectivity and aim at transforming the “social”? In order to address these questions, I relied on qualitative research methods, developing a multifaceted methodology that included participant observation at four meditation retreats, semi-structured interviews with meditators, the analysis of relevant literature and my own personal experiences as a beginner. I argue that the mechanisms of subjectification employed by meditation rely on two main devices: the transformation of habitual webs of associations, including couplings between selves, other humans, nonhumans and spaces and the installation of new automatisms. Vipassana and Zen technologies invite subjects to become aware of particular automatisms – regular ways of eating, sitting, walking and breathing - and to direct their attention towards them in novel ways, installing specific ways of managing their selves (stopping and breathing whenever they hear the sounds of bells; developing an attitude of equanimity when they are looking for sensations in their bodies). Vipassana and Zen are mediators that generate new experiences and ways of being informed by meditation, as well as a number of social applications that rely on the paradigmatic changes enacted by these practices. Informed by the dualism between modern and nonmodern, I argue that Zen and Vipassana can be understood as technologies of the nonmodern self (Pickering, 3 2010), suspending the dualism between body and mind, self and others, humans and nonhumans, contributing towards the establishment of nondual paradigms of selfhood and innovative forms of social organization that include new ways of performing human reformation, social action and humanenvironment couplings. The theoretical contributions of this dissertation are threefold. First, I want to extend current STS scholarly work on the self. Second, I want to contribute towards a post-humanist understanding of meditation assemblages. Finally, I am informed by Michel Foucault’s insights on technologies of the self to study meditation, but instead of focusing on the history or genealogy of the western self, I analyze a number of devices of subjectification mobilized to operate subjective changes and to transform the social.

O presente estudo teve como objetivo principal compreender como o consumo de psicofármacos se legitimou como uma tecnologia de si no interior do dispositivo de medicalização. Concluímos que esta é uma tecnologia que incide sobre os corpos por estar acoplada aos modos de subjetivação contemporâneos. A análise aqui apresentada trata do contexto social de Boa Vista das Missões, um pequeno município do Rio Grande do Sul. Realizamos uma pesquisa de campo com seis meses de duração e entrevistamos uma amostra representativa de 400 pessoas. A análise dos relatos e das informações construídas buscou dar visibilidade aos enunciados presentes nas formações discursivas que definem e explicam o consumo de psicofármacos por 53% dos 400 pesquisados. Utilizamos a perspectiva genealógica de Michel Foucault para refletir sobre este campo de pesquisa e problematizar a produção de modos de vida marcados por formas de controle individualizantes e totalizantes ao mesmo tempo. Neste sentido, partimos do histórico da inserção dos psicofármacos em nossa cultura para entender as dimensões que ocupam neste contexto. A análise pode identificar as redes enunciativas no interior do dispositivo de medicalização que fundamentam uma apresentação do biopoder que se sustenta no tripé “dependência, assistencialismo, individualismo” / The main goal of this research was to comprehend how the consuming of psychoactive prescribed drugs was legitimated as a technology of the self inside the medicalization device (dispositf). We concluded that this technology has its incidence on the body because it is attached to contemporary modes of subjectification. The analysis presented here refers to Boa Vista das Missões, a small town in the countryside of Rio Grande do Sul state. We conducted a six months field research and interviewed a sample of 400 inhabitants. The accomplished speech and data analysis intended to give visibly to the discursive formations’ statements that explain and sustain the consuming of prescribed psychoactive drugs by 53% of 400 researched We used Michel Foucault’s genealogical perspective to guide our understanding of the research field and to problematize the production of lifestyles characterized by individualized and totalized forms of control. As a stating point we described the history of the introduction of psychoactive drugs in our culture in order to understand the dimension of the consuming in this specific context. The analysis identified statements arragements in the interior of the medicalization device (dispositif) that found a form of biopower sustained in the tripe “dependence – assistancialism – individualism”.

O presente estudo teve como objetivo principal compreender como o consumo de psicofármacos se legitimou como uma tecnologia de si no interior do dispositivo de medicalização. Concluímos que esta é uma tecnologia que incide sobre os corpos por estar acoplada aos modos de subjetivação contemporâneos. A análise aqui apresentada trata do contexto social de Boa Vista das Missões, um pequeno município do Rio Grande do Sul. Realizamos uma pesquisa de campo com seis meses de duração e entrevistamos uma amostra representativa de 400 pessoas. A análise dos relatos e das informações construídas buscou dar visibilidade aos enunciados presentes nas formações discursivas que definem e explicam o consumo de psicofármacos por 53% dos 400 pesquisados. Utilizamos a perspectiva genealógica de Michel Foucault para refletir sobre este campo de pesquisa e problematizar a produção de modos de vida marcados por formas de controle individualizantes e totalizantes ao mesmo tempo. Neste sentido, partimos do histórico da inserção dos psicofármacos em nossa cultura para entender as dimensões que ocupam neste contexto. A análise pode identificar as redes enunciativas no interior do dispositivo de medicalização que fundamentam uma apresentação do biopoder que se sustenta no tripé “dependência, assistencialismo, individualismo” / The main goal of this research was to comprehend how the consuming of psychoactive prescribed drugs was legitimated as a technology of the self inside the medicalization device (dispositf). We concluded that this technology has its incidence on the body because it is attached to contemporary modes of subjectification. The analysis presented here refers to Boa Vista das Missões, a small town in the countryside of Rio Grande do Sul state. We conducted a six months field research and interviewed a sample of 400 inhabitants. The accomplished speech and data analysis intended to give visibly to the discursive formations’ statements that explain and sustain the consuming of prescribed psychoactive drugs by 53% of 400 researched We used Michel Foucault’s genealogical perspective to guide our understanding of the research field and to problematize the production of lifestyles characterized by individualized and totalized forms of control. As a stating point we described the history of the introduction of psychoactive drugs in our culture in order to understand the dimension of the consuming in this specific context. The analysis identified statements arragements in the interior of the medicalization device (dispositif) that found a form of biopower sustained in the tripe “dependence – assistancialism – individualism”.

O presente estudo teve como objetivo principal compreender como o consumo de psicofármacos se legitimou como uma tecnologia de si no interior do dispositivo de medicalização. Concluímos que esta é uma tecnologia que incide sobre os corpos por estar acoplada aos modos de subjetivação contemporâneos. A análise aqui apresentada trata do contexto social de Boa Vista das Missões, um pequeno município do Rio Grande do Sul. Realizamos uma pesquisa de campo com seis meses de duração e entrevistamos uma amostra representativa de 400 pessoas. A análise dos relatos e das informações construídas buscou dar visibilidade aos enunciados presentes nas formações discursivas que definem e explicam o consumo de psicofármacos por 53% dos 400 pesquisados. Utilizamos a perspectiva genealógica de Michel Foucault para refletir sobre este campo de pesquisa e problematizar a produção de modos de vida marcados por formas de controle individualizantes e totalizantes ao mesmo tempo. Neste sentido, partimos do histórico da inserção dos psicofármacos em nossa cultura para entender as dimensões que ocupam neste contexto. A análise pode identificar as redes enunciativas no interior do dispositivo de medicalização que fundamentam uma apresentação do biopoder que se sustenta no tripé “dependência, assistencialismo, individualismo” / The main goal of this research was to comprehend how the consuming of psychoactive prescribed drugs was legitimated as a technology of the self inside the medicalization device (dispositf). We concluded that this technology has its incidence on the body because it is attached to contemporary modes of subjectification. The analysis presented here refers to Boa Vista das Missões, a small town in the countryside of Rio Grande do Sul state. We conducted a six months field research and interviewed a sample of 400 inhabitants. The accomplished speech and data analysis intended to give visibly to the discursive formations’ statements that explain and sustain the consuming of prescribed psychoactive drugs by 53% of 400 researched We used Michel Foucault’s genealogical perspective to guide our understanding of the research field and to problematize the production of lifestyles characterized by individualized and totalized forms of control. As a stating point we described the history of the introduction of psychoactive drugs in our culture in order to understand the dimension of the consuming in this specific context. The analysis identified statements arragements in the interior of the medicalization device (dispositif) that found a form of biopower sustained in the tripe “dependence – assistancialism – individualism”.

Kink has a long history of being condemned in Western society. Even though kink is prevalent in popular culture (and in many people’s bedrooms) it continues to be considered abnormal and associated with deviance. Through nine in-depth qualitative interviews, this thesis explores the experiences of kinksters with kink, their engagement with the kink community, and their negotiations of stigma in everyday life. These experiences are analyzed using Foucault’s theories on discourse and technologies of the self and Goffman’s conceptualization of stigma. The thesis found that while the social condemnation of kink has resulted in members of the kink community struggling to manage their identity as kinksters, they also find joy and a sense of belonging within the kink community. Moreover, through the kink community, kinksters learn to conceptualize and practice consent in a new way; one that is rooted in being an ethical subject. The thesis concludes with a call to challenge the normative tropes and stigmatic assumptions of deviance that continue to marginalize and oppress kinksters.

A tese analisa como a discursividade empresarial brasileira direcionada aos Recursos Humanos mobiliza sua comunidade a aprender sobre as competências que credenciam o gestor de pessoas (líder) a alcançar uma empregabilidade bem-sucedida quando acionados certos domínios de ação sobre si. Sustentada por um quadro teórico inscrito na linha de pesquisa dos Estudos Culturais em Educação, na vertente pós-estruturalista, buscou-se apoio teórico em Larrosa (2011), Marín-Díaz (2012), Sennett (2006, 2008), Miller e Rose (2012), Camozzato (2012, 2014) e Saraiva (2009, 2013, 2015), além de em produções acadêmicas voltadas à discussão de como se configura o trabalho contemporâneo e suas interconexões com a educação. Os procedimentos metodológicos envolvem um rigoroso escrutínio de artigos publicados no site da Associação Brasileira de Recursos Humanos (ABRH) no período de 2011 a 2015. Nesse recorte temporal, foi possível compreender que há uma intrincada e complexa produção de textos que se interpenetram em um jogo de possibilidades na produção do sujeito. As particularidades, descontinuidades e rupturas percebidas conduziram à construção do corpus de análise. A direção das discussões buscou acompanhar algumas das distintas maneiras de acionar competências que transcendam o "eu" profissional. Considerou-se que a produção cultural examinada aciona uma pedagogia da empregabilidade ao promover e ensinar práticas que dão destaque a aspectos tais como a busca do autoconhecimento, a resiliência e a inteligência emocional e social, para que associados e leitores do site se alinhem aos moldes dos procedimentos que as postulações neoliberais sobre o mercado indicam ser pertinentes para o alcance de uma bem-sucedida carreira profissional. / This thesis analyzes the way that the Brazilian entrepreneurial discursivity directed to Human Resources has mobilized its community to learn about competences that qualify people managers (leaders) for successful employability when certain actions are taken. Supported by a theoretical framework inscribed in the research line of Cultural Studies in Education in its post-structuralist approach, I have searched for theoretical support in Larrosa (2011), Marín-Díaz (2012), Sennett (2006, 2008), Miller & Rose (2012), Camozzato (2012, 2014) and Saraiva (2009, 2013, 2015), besides academic productions discussing how contemporary work is arranged. The methodological procedures have involved a strict examination of articles published on the website of the Brazilian Association of Human Resources (ABRH) from 2011 to 2015. In this time span, it has been possible to understand that an intricate and complex production of texts intertwines in a game of possibilities and acts in the production of subjects. Particularities, discontinuities and disruptions have guided the construction of the corpus. The discussions have been focused on different ways of triggering competences that transcend the professional "self". It has been considered that the cultural production under examination puts into action a kind of employability pedagogy by both fostering and teaching practices that highlight some aspects, such as self-knowledge, resilience, as well as emotional and social intelligence, so that the website members and readers can be in line with the standards that neoliberal assumptions about the market have pointed out as pertinent to the achievement of a successful professional career.

This thesis utilizes Foucault’s concept of “technologies of the self” to examine three texts from 1980s British literature for the ways that postmodern writers compose the self. The first chapter “Liminality and the Art of Self-Composition” explores the ways in which liminal space and time contributes to the self-composition in J.L. Carr’s hybrid Victorian/postmodern novel A Month in the Country (1980). The chapter on Jeanette Winterson’s novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) titled “Intertextuality and the Art of Self-Composition” argues that Winterson’s intertextual play enables her protagonist Jeanette to resist the dominance of religious discipline and discourse and compose a more autonomous, artistically oriented self. The third chapter, titled “Spatial Experimentation and the Art of Self-Composition,” examines R.S. Thomas’s collection The Echoes Return Slow (1988), a hybrid text of prose and poetry, arguing that Thomas explores spatial gaps in the text as generative spaces for self-composition.

This thesis is a work of practical philosophy situated at the intersection of bioethics, environmental ethics, and social and political thought. Broadly, its topic is the moral status of nonhuman animals. One of its pivotal aims is to encourage and foster the “sympathetic imaginative construction of another’s reality” and to determine how that construction might feed back on to understandings of ourselves and of our place in this world that we share with so many other creatures. In the three chapters that follow the introduction, I explore a concept (vulnerability), a tradition in moral philosophy (the ethic of care), and a philosopher (Wittgenstein) that are not often foregrounded in discussions of animal ethics. Taken together, these sections establish a picture of other animals (and of the kinship that humans share with them) that can stand as an alternative to the utilitarian and rights theories that have been dominant in this domain of philosophical inquiry. In my fifth and sixth chapters, I extend this conceptual framework by turning to the work of Michel Foucault. Here, I develop a two-pronged approach. The first direction – inspired by Foucault’s work on “technologies of power” – is a broad, top-down engagement that explores many of the social apparatuses that constitute the power-laden environments in which human beings and other animals interact. I focus on the slaughterhouse in particular and argue that it is a pernicious institution in which care and concern are rendered virtually impossible. The second direction – inspired by Foucault’s later work on “technologies of the self” – is a bottom-up approach that looks at the different ways that individuals care for, and fashion themselves, as ethical subjects. Here, I examine the dietary practice of vegetarianism, arguing that it is best understood as an ethical practice of self-care. One virtue of my investigation is that it enables a creative synthesis of disparate strands of philosophical thought (i.e. analytic, continental, and feminist traditions). Another is that it demonstrates the philosophical importance of attending to both the wider, institutional dimension of human-animal interactions and to the lived, embodied experiences of individuals who must orient themselves and live their lives within that broader domain. This more holistic approach enables concrete critical reflection that can be the impetus for social, and self-, transformation.

This thesis explores the way that breast cancer risks are represented in popular Canadian women’s magazines. In particular, using discourse analysis on 34 articles from Chatelaine, Canadian Living, and Flare, this study examines how public discourse of breast cancer risks in women’s magazines engages specific ideas about women, consumption, and individual responsibility for health. Using a variety of discursive representation techniques, women’s magazines define breast cancer risk as a problem originating in the individual woman’s body and behaviour. Women’s magazines also emphasize the individual woman’s responsibility to lower the risk of the disease, and identify willpower to choose the “right” products and practices as key instruments to fulfill this responsibility. While highlighting women’s capability to make autonomous decisions to manage the risk, breast cancer risk discourse in women’s magazines also encourages readers to maintain morality as females without breaking away from society’s expectations about femininity. In this way, breast cancer risk discourse in women’s magazines is not merely a less technical, reader-friendly reproduction of scientific reports, but a product that explains health risk information through the lens of longstanding cultural values about women and contemporary sociopolitical ideology that emphasizes individual responsibility for health. / Graduate

This thesis is a work of practical philosophy situated at the intersection of bioethics, environmental ethics, and social and political thought. Broadly, its topic is the moral status of nonhuman animals. One of its pivotal aims is to encourage and foster the “sympathetic imaginative construction of another’s reality” and to determine how that construction might feed back on to understandings of ourselves and of our place in this world that we share with so many other creatures. In the three chapters that follow the introduction, I explore a concept (vulnerability), a tradition in moral philosophy (the ethic of care), and a philosopher (Wittgenstein) that are not often foregrounded in discussions of animal ethics. Taken together, these sections establish a picture of other animals (and of the kinship that humans share with them) that can stand as an alternative to the utilitarian and rights theories that have been dominant in this domain of philosophical inquiry. In my fifth and sixth chapters, I extend this conceptual framework by turning to the work of Michel Foucault. Here, I develop a two-pronged approach. The first direction – inspired by Foucault’s work on “technologies of power” – is a broad, top-down engagement that explores many of the social apparatuses that constitute the power-laden environments in which human beings and other animals interact. I focus on the slaughterhouse in particular and argue that it is a pernicious institution in which care and concern are rendered virtually impossible. The second direction – inspired by Foucault’s later work on “technologies of the self” – is a bottom-up approach that looks at the different ways that individuals care for, and fashion themselves, as ethical subjects. Here, I examine the dietary practice of vegetarianism, arguing that it is best understood as an ethical practice of self-care. One virtue of my investigation is that it enables a creative synthesis of disparate strands of philosophical thought (i.e. analytic, continental, and feminist traditions). Another is that it demonstrates the philosophical importance of attending to both the wider, institutional dimension of human-animal interactions and to the lived, embodied experiences of individuals who must orient themselves and live their lives within that broader domain. This more holistic approach enables concrete critical reflection that can be the impetus for social, and self-, transformation.