Facilitator Notes Biopower and Sexuality

Transcription

1 Facilitator Notes Biopower and Sexuality Created by: Dr Mark Davis Monash University, Melbourne, Australia This module was developed as part of Introduction to Advancing Sexuality Studies: a short course on sexuality theory and research methodologies. The short course was developed by the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, and the International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society. Funded by the Ford Foundation

2 Licensing information This module and the entire short course on sexuality theory and research methodologies are available under an Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike licence from Creative Commons. This licence allows for work to be used as is, amended or built upon, on provision that: Any use or amendments are undertaken for a non-commercial purpose Credit is given to: o Module creator o Short course developers: the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, and the International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society (IASSCS) o The Ford Foundation (as short course funder). In addition, any new creations based on original modules or the original short course must be licensed under identical terms. This ensures that any derivatives of the module or the short course will also be non-commercial. This module was created by Dr Mark Davis and adapted by the Advancing Sexuality Studies short course team at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module

3 Contents Background... 4 Module approach... 5 Overview... 5 Required pre-reading... 6 Materials required... 6 Module structure, materials and timing... 7 Key to symbols and formatting... 9 Introduction...11 Schedule Module aims Session 1. Biopower, governmentality and technologies of the self...14 Key module concepts: lecture and brainstorming Pre-reading review Session 2. Self-care and technologies of the self Discourse analysis: pairs work...25 Feedback and discussion...27 Session 3. Sexual health education materials and governmentality Analysing sexual health education media: pairs work...28 Discussion...30 Concluding activity Optional assessment exercise Further reading Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module

4 Background Based on the work of Michel Foucault, the interrelated concepts of biopower, governmentality and technologies of the self have been used to shape sexualities research and to investigate health education practice. Indeed, many of the prevailing concerns in HIV and sexual and reproductive health can be conceptualised as biopolitical thereby expanding the conceptual tools that can be used to generate research questions and encourage consideration of new forms of practice. Using examples from research and health education, this module introduces these concepts and enables participants to explore how they may be applied. The aims of this module are: To introduce participants to the concepts of biopower, governmentality and technologies of the self To encourage participants to apply these concepts in analysis of interview text and sexual health promotion material To encourage participants to critically reflect upon how these concepts can generate new questions and forms of inquiry in HIV care and sexual and reproductive health Participants will: Examine sexual and reproductive health and HIV care as forms of governmentality Discuss the implications of self-regulation in sexual and reproductive health and HIV care Apply Foucauldian approaches to the analysis of sexuality and educational interventions Explore the biopolitical dimensions of sexual and reproductive health and HIV care Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module

5 Module approach While this module contains a short lecture introducing the concepts of biopower, governmentality, and technologies of the self, the majority of the work carried out relies on brainstorming, discussion and pairs work. Much of the content involves interaction with the facilitator. The short course team advises that any review or amendment to the module maintains the focus on active learning wherever possible. Overview Introduction Participants will be given a brief description of the module approach, schedule, and aims. Session 1. Biopower, governmentality and technologies of the self This session introduces participants to the key concepts informing the module and encourages them to apply these concepts to aspects of their own experience in relation to sexual health messages. Session 2. Self-care and technologies of the self In this session participants are asked to work in pairs to analyse extracts of interview transcripts from the book HIV in South Africa: Talking About the Big Thing (2007) using a discourse analysis approach informed by the concept of technologies of the self. Session 3. Sexual health education materials and governmentality Session 3 requires participants to analyse a UK sexual health poster, from a governmentality perspective. Participants will then be asked to discuss how governmentality functions in sexual health education, and how it might be resisted. Concluding activity Participants are invited to identify a key learning point from the module and to reflect upon how the ideas contained in the module might inform their own research or professional practice. Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module

6 Required pre-reading Gutting, G. (2005) Modern sex. In Foucault: A Very Short Introduction Oxford, Oxford University Press, p Rose, N. (2001) The politics of life itself, Theory, Culture and Society, 18(6), Shoveller, J.A. & Johnson, J.J. (2006) Risky groups, risky behaviour, and risky persons: dominating discourses on youth sexual heath, Critical Public Health, 16(1), Materials required Flipchart paper or whiteboard; marker pens. Session 2. Handout A: Self-care and technologies of the self (in Resources folder) Session 3. Handout B: Sexual health education materials and governmentality Poster (in Resources folder) Handout C: Sexual health education materials and governmentality Questions (in Resources folder) N.B.: The sexual health promotion poster included on Handout B (designed by the Terrence Higgins Trust in the UK) can be substituted by or augmented with another example if the facilitator desired. This would need to be prepared in advance. Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module

7 Module structure, materials and timing Session & approach PowerPoint Other materials (provided or required) Est. timing Introduction, schedule and aims mins Session 1. Biopower, governmentality and technologies of the self Key module concepts: lecture Facilitator presentation plus brainstorming mins mins Pre-reading review Pairs work and discussion mins Session 2. Self-care and technologies of the self mins Discourse analysis Pairs work Handout A: Self-care and technologies of the self 35 mins Feedback and discussion mins Session 3. Sexual health education materials and governmentality Analysing sexual health education media Pairs work mins Handout B: Sexual health education materials and governmentality Poster* 35 mins Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 7

8 Handout C: Sexual health education materials and governmentality Questions Feedback and discussion mins Concluding activity & acknowledgements mins Total 275 mins (just over 4.5 hrs) (*Other examples of published material could be substituted for this example. See Materials required.) Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 8

9 Key to symbols and formatting Throughout these notes, the following symbols and formatting clues have been used: This symbol marks an instruction to the facilitator. Use of a bullet point indicates steps to be followed in completing an instruction. This symbol, plus a different font which is larger and more widely spaced, indicates text to be read aloud. The end of the text to be read aloud will be indicated with the following symbol. We have also indicated the points where a slide transition occurs on the PowerPoint presentation by inserting: SLIDE Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 9

10 Module instructions Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 10

11 SLIDE 1 Introduction (10 mins) Read: Biopower and the related concepts of governmentality and technologies of the self have been important to critical inquiry in aspects of HIV and sexual and reproductive health. Based on the work of Michel Foucault and others who have followed his line of argument, these concepts have been used to shape sexualities research and to investigate health education practice. They are useful because they provide the basis for reflexivity in research and practice, help generate new questions and new forms of inquiry, and expand the conceptual tools that can be applied to prevailing concerns in HIV care and sexual and reproductive health. Many of the prevailing concerns in HIV and sexual and reproductive health can be conceptualised as biopolitical (hence biopower ), with important implications for researchers and practitioners. Governmentality has been used to promote understanding of the operation of health education and HIV prevention strategies, of how these may place requirements on individuals and communities in ways that may be counterproductive, and of how they may be reoriented in more productive ways. The concept of technologies of the self has been used in the analysis of interview texts to reflect on how individuals engage with themselves as ethical sexual beings, Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 11

12 among other matters. Using examples from research and health education, this module introduces these concepts and explores how they may be applied to participants research and practice. SLIDE 2 Schedule The module schedule does not currently contain tea/coffee or lunch breaks. Insert these as required. SLIDE 3 Module aims Read (on slide): This module aims: To introduce participants to the concepts of biopower, governmentality and technologies of the self To encourage participants to apply these concepts in analysis of interview text and sexual health promotion material To encourage participants to critically reflect upon how these concepts can generate new questions and forms of inquiry in HIV care and sexual and reproductive health SLIDE 4 Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 12

13 Participants will: Examine sexual and reproductive health and HIV care as forms of governmentality Discuss the implications of self-regulation in sexual and reproductive health and HIV care Apply Foucauldian approaches to the analysis of sexuality and educational interventions Explore the biopolitical dimensions of sexual and reproductive health and HIV care SLIDE 5 Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 13

14 Session 1. Biopower, governmentality and technologies of the self (120 mins) Tell participants that the aims of this session are: To introduce Foucauldian approaches to HIV, sexuality and health To clarify what is meant by governmentality and how it can be applied to sexuality and health To reflect on examples of published research and how these engage with Foucauldian concepts SLIDE 6 Key module concepts: lecture and brainstorming (80 mins) Read (or amend as required): Biopower, governmentality and technologies of the self have been influential concepts in Critical Sexuality Studies. They are derived from Foucault s multi-volume History of Sexuality ( , in translation) and related writing. Foucault was interested in questioning prevailing assumptions regarding sexuality through his approach to power and social relations. In The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction (1978), Foucault famously argued against the notion that sexuality was the natural expression of individual sexual instincts or drives. In this Freudian view, sexual desires that come into conflict with civilised norms must be repressed in order for society to function in a harmonious manner. From science to popular culture, such an understanding of sexuality Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 14

15 has continued to inform much of how we think about and understand sexuality. SLIDE 7 Foucault reversed this notion and argued that sexuality was not repressed but actively produced by the ways in which it is spoken and written about in our cultures. Thus, sexuality is not something that each of us has inside of us, but is better understood as a discursive field that compels us to define our sexual behaviours, interests, feelings, bodies and practices in authoritative language and dominant understandings found in institutionalised knowledges. According to Foucault, words and ideas such as sexual desire and sexual drive are not natural facts, but dominant psychological concepts for explaining aspects of human sexual behaviour. Thus, Foucault was less interested in the individual experience of sexual life, and focused instead on the ways in which sexuality was constructed as an object of inquiry in a number of authoritative institutional and disciplinary knowledges. He argued that individual sexual life took shape in relation to these knowledges in ways that had implications for how people came to see themselves and how they might experience themselves sexually. Thus, medicine, psychology, anthropology, sociology and education (to name only a few disciplines) help to bring sexuality into being as a social practice at the same time as they seek to describe and understand it. The ways in which Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 15

16 sexuality is spoken about or perceived within these disciplines contributes to the establishment and stabilisation of assumptions about sexuality. One of the key effects of this is that the systems of knowledge and the institutional practices they create provide individuals with the language and methods to both speak about and understand their own and others sexuality. SLIDE 8 Through historical analysis, Foucault demonstrated how sexuality emerged as an object of scrutiny in the 18 th century. At that time, growing state concern with the management of populations in the context of increasing urbanisation and industrialisation led to the development of regulations specifically related to the management of health. Fertility and reproductive health, hygiene, sanitation and sexuality all emerged as key areas of personal life that the state had an interest in regulating. Authoritative discourses related to personal conduct were produced, and individuals came to evaluate and categorise themselves and each other in relation to these discourses in acts of self-surveillance and self-discipline. Foucault termed this social and political investment in the regulation and proper management of health and sexual reproduction as biopower. Being able to control and regulate biopower is a focus for modern systems of local and international government. Examples include sex Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 16

17 education in schools, legislation to support family life, the child care and school system and surveys of population fertility, to name a few. (10 mins) SLIDE 9 Ask participants to brainstorm examples of biopower in their own social or professional contexts. Define biopower before participants brainstorm. The following definition can be used (on slide): Biopower can be thought of as: the social and political investment in the regulation and proper management of health and sexuality. (5 mins) Continue to read: It goes without saying that programmes seeking to address such concerns as HIV, AIDS, STIs and sexual and reproductive health concerns are forms of biopower. One of the key effects of such programmes is to ensure that citizens are effectively incorporated into the systems of knowledge and institutional practices that constitute particular understandings of sexuality. They do this by giving people the language and methods to be able to speak about and regulate their own and others sexuality. SLIDE 10 Governmentality is a concept that draws attention to the ways in which systems of regulation address individual and social interests at the same time. Other ways of understanding governmentality are to regard it as the conduct of conduct, or the contact point between Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 17

18 institutional imperatives and the practices of individuals. Governmentality is different from direct forms of governance such as laws and policies that prohibit or support forms of sexuality. Governmentality focuses on the ways in which individuals are invited to address their behaviours as a matter of their own desires and aspirations. In governmentality, individuals are not told what to do, but are positioned in ways that they can reflect on what they do. Individuals are influenced through the posing of questions, dilemmas and choices that encourage self-contemplation. Individuals are addressed as agents capable of adjusting their conduct to meet desirable institutional norms that are understood to be in their best interests, and in the best interests of society overall. SLIDE 11 How does governmentality function? How and why do people submit to institutionalised or authoritative ideas about how to conduct their lives? First, it is helpful to shift away from thinking of discourses as things that bear down upon individuals and externally regulate their behaviour. Rather, Foucault theorised that individuals are constituted through discourses and come to see themselves in the terms of the discourses themselves. Thus, they regulate their own behaviour in the process of being particular kinds of persons. But how do they do this? Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 18

19 In his later work, Foucault theorised the concept of technologies of the self to address this very question. Unlike governmentality analyses, which address the relationship between individual practices and social institutions, such as public health, technologies of the self address the relationship that individuals have with themselves. According to Foucault (1988: 18), technologies of the self: permit individuals to effect by their own means, or with the help of others, a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts and conduct, and way of being so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection or immortality. SLIDE 12 The concept of technologies of the self addresses the self-aware management of mind and body understood in terms of ethics, relations with others, emotions and the senses. In systems of regulation, individuals are addressed as rational, autonomous and self-aware agents who are expected to pursue lives that lead to the greatest degree of happiness and security, and are hence likely to conduct their lives in accordance with authoritative ideas about how to live a safe, healthy and happy life. Such ideas are typically found in institutional discourses that advise people on the best ways to live. These ideas may seem so sensible and self-evident that to conduct oneself in any other way can seem hard to imagine. Individuals who Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 19

20 do not conduct themselves in accordance with such discourses may be categorised as deviant, pathological, dangerous, risky or unethical. For example, in relation to sexual and reproductive health, public health discourse on HIV prevention and treatment seeks to manipulate the virus through the action of individuals in terms of their own health care practices and compliance with treatment prescriptions. HIV prevention addresses the behaviour of individuals and, through them, seeks to control the virus. The concept of technologies of the self allows us to understand how individuals coordinate their own actions in relation to such HIV technologies. Those HIV-positive people who fail to heed the advice of public health in the management of their HIV status are subject to surveillance and may come to be seen as dangerous, risky or problematic in some other way. Their behaviour may even justify more direct and oppressive interventions to control and regulate their activities. (10 mins) SLIDE 13 Ask participants to brainstorm some health care messages circulating in their social context. Alternatively, you may be able to identify an example from the previous Q & A. Do not smoke, abstain from sex before marriage and use a condom are possible examples, but there are likely to be many more. Choose one of the messages, write it on flipchart paper or the whiteboard and ask participants the following questions in relation to it (on slide): How do you experience this message in your own lives? Do you follow this advice? If so, why? If not, why not? Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 20

21 What are the advantages of taking this advice? How might following this advice make you feel? Aside from potential illness, are there other implications of not following this advice? How easy or difficult is it to resist these forms of advice? How are people who engage in this activity thought about? (10 mins) SLIDE 14 Continue to read: The notions of biopower, governmentality and technologies of the self lead into the concept of biopolitics. Perhaps the most well known writer in this area is Nikolas Rose, author of one of your pre-readings, who has established the related concepts of vital politics and somatic citizenship (2007). Vital politics is the idea that in an age of unprecedented ability to manipulate human biology, the fate of the matter of life has become deeply political. What was once considered natural and separate to the social sphere is now the source of intense social debate. Questions of social justice, inequality and domination no longer just apply to individuals and communities. Such questions are also relevant for how we manipulate the genetic make-up of future generations and how we exploit biological matter for profit. Somatic citizenship relies on notions of technologies of the self to draw attention to how the human body is now understood to be an important resource for society, but is also deeply individual. In this situation, human rights are understood to extend to the rights and Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 21

22 responsibilities of citizens in relation to their bodies and biological matter. SLIDE 15 There are many biopolitical questions to be asked in relation to the area of sexual and reproductive health. For example contraception, pre-marital sex, abortion, abuse in sexual relationships, and contacttracing in STI treatment are all biopolitical questions. Biopolitics also provides a framework for addressing some more recent dilemmas such as the criminalisation of HIV transmission and the implications of the use of biological means to prevent HIV and STIs. (5 mins) SLIDE 16 Ask participants to break into groups of three or four and provide each group with one of the following topics (on slide): Pre-marital sex Sex education for school-age children Using the internet to find romantic and sexual partners Teenage pregnancy Ask each group to consider the ways in which their topic might be conceptualised as biopolitical. It will be important for participants to think about how these issues are established and debated in their own societies. Tell groups they can use the following focus questions to guide their discussions (on slide), remembering that each of the following concepts of biopower, governmentality and technologies of the self are aspects of an overarching biopolitics: Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 22

23 In what way can we think of this topic in terms of biopower? How might this topic reflect governmentality? How might technologies of the self be present in this topic? (i.e. what appeal to individuals may be made in relation to this topic?) (15 mins) Ask each group to provide feedback in which they describe how their topic might qualify as biopolitical. (20 mins) Conclude the session by reading the following short summary: Biopower, governmentality and technologies of the self are concepts that allow us to analyse the ways in which sexual health in particular, and public health in general, are sites of power. By analysing the ways in which they compel us to live our lives, we become more able to determine how they constitute us as particular kinds of ethical or problematic citizens. Thus we can see how sexual health is not only regulated in terms of legislation, but also by more insidious and coercive means that address us as particular kinds of subjects. The way we experience our bodies and our sexualities is intimately connected to how we are positioned inside of such institutions and discourses, relative to their authority in our social worlds. (5 mins) SLIDE 17 Pre-reading review (40 mins) Ask participants to form into pairs. If some participants have not completed all three readings, attempt to match them up with a partner who has read the other readings. Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 23

24 Ask participants to discuss their thoughts on each of the pre-readings, paying particularly close attention to the things they either did not understand or disagreed with. Each pair should then develop a question from their discussion of the prereadings, to ask other members of the group. This question can be related to one or all of the pre-readings, and may be about something that they did not understand, something they disagreed with, or something that the pre-reading made them think about. (20 mins) Provide each pair with the opportunity to ask their question to the whole group, and encourage other participants to answer the question. It may be necessary to clarify the answer to the question once other participants have responded. (20 mins) SLIDE 18 Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 24

25 Session 2. Self-care and technologies of the self (65 mins) Tell participants this session aims to: Clarify what is meant by the concept of technologies of the self Explore how personal experience accounts can be interpreted in light of the technologies of the self framework Reflect on the implications of the technologies of the self framework for research and practice in sexual health care and related activity SLIDE 19 Discourse analysis: pairs work (35 mins) Read: Modern systems of health care, including those that apply to HIV and sexual health, place emphasis on the action of individuals. Interventions depend on individuals making changes in their patterns of daily living to accommodate and optimise forms of medical intervention. Sexual health interventions often require that affected individuals change how they relate to and communicate with others, including intimate partners. Such systems of health care also imply the forms of citizenship that are necessary to support such changes in practice. In other words, health care experts expect individuals to recognise the benefits and internalise the philosophy of self-care, and to act accordingly. These systems of intervention therefore also address how individuals engage with themselves as citizens, that is, as ethical beings charged with the care of themselves and of their relations with others. Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 25

26 In the following activity we will explore some brief extracts from interviews from qualitative research conducted in South Africa. This research was conducted by Corinne Squire and colleagues and summarised in a book called HIV in South Africa: Talking About the Big Thing (2007). The focus of this work was to strengthen HIV care work on the basis of dialogue with people with HIV and those who care for them. Squire et al. used content and narrative analysis for these interviews. We will use these extracts to reflect on the different ways that the people interviewed engaged with themselves in light of HIV infection. This activity asks you to explore some quotations from interviews regarding living with HIV so that you can reflect on the concept of technologies of the self. You may not be familiar with interpreting texts in this manner. If this is the case, bear in mind that it is almost impossible to make a wrong interpretation although, of course, practice and reflection can improve your interpretive skills. (5 mins) SLIDE 20 Ask participants to form into pairs or small groups and provide each with a copy of Handout A: Self-care and technologies of the self. Handout A asks participants to read the provided extracts and write their interpretations of each example in the right-hand column. Participants are asked to consider the following questions (on Handout A and on slide): Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 26

27 What techniques of self-care are adopted in each account? How is the philosophy of self-care internalised in these accounts? How do relations with others appear in these accounts? What kinds of self do the interviewees appear to want to establish in their accounts? (30 mins) Feedback and discussion (30 mins) Ask each pair/small group to report back on their interpretations to the large group. (20 mins) Discuss these interpretations and their implications for HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health. (10 mins) SLIDE 21 Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 27

28 Session 3. Sexual health education materials and governmentality (65 mins) Tell participants that this session aims to: Examine sexual health education materials from a governmentality perspective Encourage participants to reflect on the ways public and sexual health interventions seek to position individuals, and how individuals might negotiate these positionings SLIDE 22 Analysing sexual health education media: pairs work (35 mins) Read: Sexual health education interventions often rely on print and electronic media to send information and advice to individuals and communities. There are many ways of analysing sex education media, for example in terms of audience reception and perception. Governmentality frameworks provide another way of examining sex education materials. In this approach, images and texts are considered in terms of their meanings and the underlying assumptions made about sexual selves and the possible effects of these in the organisation of sexual life. The focus here is not so much on what these materials depict and transmit but on how they may operate as expressions of governmentality. In particular, images and texts are analysed for how they inform, persuade, encourage and compel forms of action. In this sense, sex education materials can be Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 28

29 used as windows on the practice of sex education, to reveal the assumptions and imperatives that influence it. Governmentality analyses can therefore be used to promote self-awareness among those designing and delivering sex education via print and electronic media. This activity uses an example of a printed HIV health poster designed by Terrence Higgins Trust in the UK*. You will work in pairs and large group discussion to analyse the advertisement from a governmentality perspective. (5 mins) (*Other examples of printed matter could be substituted for this example, or analysed alongside it.) SLIDE 23 Ask participants to form pairs or small groups and distribute Handout B: Sexual health education materials and governmentality Poster, and Handout C: Sexual health education materials and governmentality Questions. Invite participants to examine the HIV health advertisement (Handout B) and respond to the questions (on Handout C, and on slide): What is your initial reaction to the printed matter? Which elements have you responded to: colour, text, image? What is the surface (obvious) meaning of the printed matter? Who is addressed by the printed matter? How is this achieved? Does the printed matter have a hidden (less obvious) meaning? Explain. What do you think the printed matter is aiming to achieve and how does it do this? What assumptions are being made about the audience? (30 mins) Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 29

30 SLIDE 24 Discussion (30 mins) Conduct a feedback session by asking the whole group the following questions: What was the main governmental strategy of the printed matter in question: information; advice; persuasion; ethical dilemma; or something else? How might audiences resist strategies like this? Is it possible to design sexual health education materials so that they always work in the intended ways? (30 mins) SLIDE 25 Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 30

31 Concluding activity (15 mins) Read: Each participant in this module will have their own perspective on what they have learned. It can be illuminating to find out what other people have derived from the module and doing so provides an effective way of ending the session. If you are intending to ask participants to complete the module s optional assessment task, add that reflecting on what participants have learned in the module will also help them with the assessment task. Ask participants to make note on a sheet of paper of the most important, significant, troublesome, or outstanding learning point of the module. (5 mins) Then ask each participant to briefly share a key learning point with the group. (10 mins) SLIDE 26 Short course acknowledgements Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 31

32 Optional assessment exercise Choose one of the learning activities conducted in the module. Write a short, reflective account of the learning activity in the style of a newspaper/magazine article (700 words). Imagine you are reporting to your peers in a brief but compelling manner. Be creative with how you report on the learning activity. Make sure you address the following in your article: - The key learning point of the activity - Summary of what happened in terms of the procedure and the concepts discussed - Reflection on the relevance of biopower, governmentality or technologies of the self for the learning activity in question Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 32

33 Further reading (includes lecture bibliography) Blackwood, E. (2007) Regulation of sexuality in Indonesian discourse: normative gender, criminal law and shifting strategies of control, Culture, Health and Sexuality, 9(3), Foucault, M. (1978) The History of Sexuality. Volume One: An Introduction. Harmondsworth, Penguin. Foucault, M. (1982 [1977]) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Harmondsworth, Penguin. Foucault, M. (1988) Technologies of the self. In L. Martin, H. Gutman & P. Hutton (Eds) Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press. Foucault, M. (1991) The repressive hypothesis. In P. Rabinow (Ed) The Foucault Reader London, Penguin, p Gutting, G. (2005) Modern sex. In Foucault: A Very Short Introduction Oxford, Oxford University Press, p Halperin, D. (2007) What do gay men want? In What Do Gay Men Want? An Essay on Sex, Risk, and Subjectivity Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, p Macleod, C. (2001) Teenage motherhood and the regulation of mothering in the scientific literature: the South African example, Feminism & Psychology, 11(4), McNay, L. (2003) Foucault: aesthetics and ethics. In J. Weeks, J. Holland & M. Waites (Eds) Sexualities and Society: A Reader Cambridge, Polity, p Persson, A. & Newman, C. (2008) Making monsters: heterosexuality, crime and race in recent Western media coverage of HIV, Sociology of Health & Illness, 30(4), Pugsley, P. (2007) Sex and the city-state: a study of sexual discourse in Singaporean women's magazines, Asian Journal of Communication, 17(3), Race, K. (2001) The undetectable crisis: changing technologies of risk, Sexualities, 4(2), Race, K. (2007) Engaging in a culture of barebacking: gay men and the risk of HIV prevention. In K. Hannah-Moffat & P. O'Malley (Eds) Gendered Risks London, Routledge, p Richey, L. (2004) Construction, control and family planning in Tanzania: some bodies the same and some bodies different, Feminist Review, 78, Rose, N. (2007a) Biological citizens. In The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century Princeton, Princeton University Press, p Rose, N. (2007b) The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century. Princeton, Princeton University Press. Shoveller, J.A. & Johnson, J.J. (2006) Risky groups, risky behaviour, and risky persons: dominating discourses on youth sexual heath, Critical Public Health, 16(1), Squire, C. (2007) HIV in South Africa: Talking About the Big Thing. London, Routledge. Wilbraham, L. (2008) Parental communication with children about sex in the HIV/Aids epidemic in South Africa: gendered, raced, classed and cultural appropriations of Lovelines, African Journal of AIDS Research, 7(1), Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 33

34 Wilbraham, L. (2009) Manufacturing willingness: parents and young people talking about sex in the HIV/Aids epidemic in South Africa, South African Journal of Psychology, 39(1), Facilitator Notes, Biopower and Sexuality module 34