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Call for Abstracts | IV ISA Forum of Sociology | Deadline: September 30, 2019

Session: Medication as a New Social Tool for Workplace Performance? Revisiting the Dissemination of Pharmaceuticalization

RC15 Sociology of Health (host committee)
Language: English

The new social uses of medicines for physical, cognitive and social performance enhancement purposes have attracted significant theoretical/sociological reflections, often centred on the concept of pharmaceuticalization (Williams et al. 2009, Abraham 2010). The heuristic value of this concept has shed light on new performance needs and/or demands, which are not dissociable from the modern social instrumentality of medicines use for non-medical purposes. The non-medical use of medicines has become a way through which to achieve a certain image or socially expected performance standards (Rose 2009). The sociological application of this analytical approach in labour environments, however, is still scarce. Yet, given the current transformations in productive processes and standards for work performance, work contexts constitute sites with a particular social permeability to the advancement, in various forms, of the pharmaceuticalization of work capacity and its enhancement.

The aim of this session is to gather contributions to the analytical depth of specificities of pharmaceuticalization in work contexts and its forms of dissemination. Particularly, we invite papers that look at (A) different social dissemination routes/pathways of pharmaceuticalization; (B) work contexts, perceived as “structured and structuring” spaces (Bourdieu 1979), and their effect on the (re)production of cultural dispositions to such performance consumptions; and (C) consumption trajectories and their connections and borders between pharmaceuticals, natural products or illegal stimulants. We welcome papers that engage with these or related issues, based on empirical studies and theoretical and/or methodological reflections.

More info about the forum at https://www.isa-sociology.org/en/conferences/forum/porto-alegre-2020
Submit Abstract: https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/forum2020/webprogrampreliminary/Session14326.html