scholarly journals The neuropsychiatric biopolitics of dementia and its ethnicity problem

2021 ◽  
pp. 003802612110599
Author(s):  
James Rupert Fletcher ◽  
Maria Zubair ◽  
Moïse Roche

Sociological analyses of dementia have long drawn on critiques of medicalisation and the medical model. This approach fails to account for late 20th/early 21st century expansion of neuropsychiatric biopolitics, wherein a more subtle and pervasive (self-)governance of health, illness, and life itself is at stake. Since the 1970s, new neuropsychiatric imaginings of dementia have been promoted, as evident in government, third sector and research trajectories. From the 2000s, engagements with ethnicity have played an increasingly important role in these trajectories. Minority ethnic (ME) populations have emerged as a new type of dementia problem. Observations about diagnosis rates and timings, medication and nursing support (including care home admission) are normatively appraised to associate minority ethnicity with poor dementia outcomes. These outcomes are then attributed to purported cultural shortcomings of these populations. The emergence of (minority) ethnicity as a problem supports a neuropsychiatric biopolitics of dementia, wherein citizens must govern their conduct accordingly so as not to become like the imagined ‘ethnic’ antagonist. Ultimately, dementia’s newfound ethnicity problem may not serve the interests of people affected by dementia so much as researchers in the field, who should therefore reflect on their own contributions.

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-358
Author(s):  
Betty Yung ◽  
Alex Chan

Hong Kong has a large public housing sector that shows strong resilience. Given the approximate half‐half public‐private housing divide in Hong Kong, officials, housing advocates and the general public envisage housing provision, problems and remedies within the ‘rigid’ framework of private and public housing. Social innovation examples of third sector housing as start-ups in ‘social housing’ have emerged in the early 21st century in Hong Kong, thereby forming a ‘new’ model in housing delivery amidst the public‐private binary housing market. This study focuses on the gap filled by third sector housing in Hong Kong through serving as a complement to the private and public housing sectors in meeting unsatisfied general housing needs and as a supplement to both sectors in catering for neglected specialist housing needs. The exact future trajectory of third sector housing development will highly depend on the synergy of different stakeholders in public, private and third sectors as well as the common citizens in its nurturance.


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose de Leon

Forgetting history, which frequently repeats itself, is a mistake. In General Psychopathology, Jaspers criticised early 20th century psychiatrists, including those who thought psychiatry was only neurology (Wernicke) or only abnormal psychology (Freud), or who did not see the limitations of the medical model in psychiatry (Kraepelin). Jaspers proposed that some psychiatric disorders follow the medical model (Group I), while others are variations of normality (Group III), or comprise schizophrenia and severe mood disorders (Group II). In the early 21st century, the players’ names have changed but the game remains the same. The US NIMH is reprising both Wernicke’s brain mythology and Kraepelin’s marketing promises. The neo-Kraepelinian revolution started at Washington University, became pre-eminent through the DSM-III developed by Spitzer, but reached a dead end with the DSM-5. McHugh, who described four perspectives in psychiatry, is the leading contemporary representative of the Jaspersian diagnostic approach. Other neo-Jaspersians are: Berrios, Wiggins and Schwartz, Ghaemi, Stanghellini, Parnas and Sass. Can psychiatry learn from its mistakes? The current psychiatric language, organised at its three levels, symptoms, syndromes, and disorders, was developed in the 19th century but is obsolete for the 21st century. Scientific advances in Jaspers’ Group III disorders require collaborating with researchers in the social and psychological sciences. Jaspers’ Group II disorders, redefined by the author as schizophrenia, catatonic syndromes, and severe mood disorders, are the core of psychiatry. Scientific advancement in them is not easy because we are not sure how to delineate between and within them correctly.


2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-444
Author(s):  
Josephine Casserly

This article explores the voice of black minority ethnic (BME) women in devolved Scotland. Particular attention is given to examining multicultural policies and devolved political processes and how these impact on the position of BME women in the political life of Scotland. The study is based on secondary analysis of existing survey and focus group data, and primary data drawn from qualitative interviews conducted with a sample of respondents from political and non-governmental organisations. Drawing on feminist theories of multiculturalism, culture is perceived as dynamic and contested and the research depicts BME women as agents engaged in shaping Scotland and their own cultures. The findings show that devolution has created a political opportunity structure more favourable to the voices of BME women. However, this voice remains quiet and is limited by barriers within and outside of BME communities. The research also highlights the role of third sector organisations in enabling the voice of BME women. The author concludes by arguing that successive devolved governments’ promotion of multiculturalism in Scotland has benefited BME women but with important limitations.


2007 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan R. Heier ◽  
A. Lee Gurley

On January 26, 1983, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) announced that it would require all railroads under its regulatory jurisdiction to change from Retirement-Replacement-Betterment (RRB) accounting, to a more theoretically sound depreciation accounting for matching revenues and expenses. The change was needed because RRB did not allow for the recapture of track investment, leaving the railroads with limited capital to replace aging track lines. Over the previous three decades, it had become painfully obvious to everyone that the industry's economic woes were the result of archaic accounting procedures that lacked harmony with the rest of American accounting standards, but the ICC was reluctant to change until new tax legislation in the early 1980s forced the issue. The decision was a culmination of a debate that started in the mid-1950s when Arthur Andersen, with the help of the securities industry, began an effort to harmonize railroad and industry standards using arguments that mirror those supporting the international accounting harmonization efforts of the early 21st century.


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