"Você, só que melhor": biohacking e os sentidos do aprimoramento na contemporaneidade

• Autor(a) principal: Morais, Deyvid Santos
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFG
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.bc.ufg.br/tede/handle/tede/11786
• topic: Aprimoramento humano; Biohacking; Nootrópico; Regimes de atenção; Neoliberalismo; Human enhancemene; Nootropic; Attention; Neoliberalism; CIENCIAS HUMANAS::SOCIOLOGIA::FUNDAMENTOS DA SOCIOLOGIA

The social dynamics of labour and medicalization made human enhancement the object of interest and discussion in contemporary life, coupled with the demands for attention, performance and health in our society. The biohacking movement arises in this context, with the goal of making the most out of one’s own physical and cognitive capabilities, and introduces techniques, products, diets and drugs for this purpose. To understand this phenomenon it is essential to uncover the meanings related to these practices, as well as the historical and social conditions that lead to them. This research analyzed content in the media, online communities about biohacking and interviews with people who consumed nootropics, that is, substances that supposedly induce cognitive enhancement. The content analyzed on human enhancement often reveals a neoliberal rationality, characteristic of the current stage of capitalism that subjectively establishes ideals of success and meritocracy while causing mental illness and exhaustion, at the risk of these practices serving as new ways to maintain labor exploitation. There is also a scientistic discourse, reinforced by the advance of biological perspectives within the social field, in which emotions are disregarded and the bodies are understood as mere objects of intervention. However, other meanings outside the neoliberal and scientistic context can be negotiated in relation to the enhancement practices if they are conceived critically, with a view to experiences of resistance and difference that promote cooperation, health and care values contrary to individualization processes.