The body and everyday dangers: origin and consolidation of the hypervigilant individual in collective imagination
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Published
03-03-2018
Raquel Taranilla
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1996-9412
Abstract
In the tension between security and freedom, which is the core of advanced liberalism, the invention of risk plays an essential role, not only because it solves dilemmas of public governance, but also because it has permeated in the private sphere of individuals, making emerge a new subjectivity: the hypervigilant individual. This theoretical article addresses how, within the culture of danger, the so-called actuarial reason (which uses statistics in the calculation of risks) transforms the medical gaze to the pathological fact, what in turn affects the way the individuals understand their own body and the dangers that threaten it. This new subjectivity demands prudent behaviors, which does not compromise the safety of the body, and often it also requires the involvement in disease prevention and health promotion. In addition, actuarial medicine breaks up the body and computes the specific risks of each fragment, what prompts the individual to self-conceptualize as a risk map. Hypervigilance has become fixed in the collective imagination, so it may be identified in contemporary cultural productions. Lydia Davis' narrative provides illustrative examples of the hypervigilant individual.
How to Cite
Taranilla, R. (2018). The body and everyday dangers: origin and consolidation of the hypervigilant individual in collective imagination. Papeles De Identidad, 2018(1), papel 185. https://doi.org/10.1387/pceic.17727
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Keywords
governance of the body, risk, subjectivity, hypervigilance, collective imagination
Section
Single Topic Issues
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