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Sleep in the Arms of Anthropology: Social and Cultural Context of Narrowed Consciousness
Šťastná, Hana ; Samek, Tomáš (advisor) ; Abu Ghosh, Yasar (referee)
This thesis deals with the phenomenon of sleeping and its variations. It is the outcome of long-term field research and participant observation. At the core of my research is a sleep laboratory from which I freely venture into other fields. I draw not only on a number of interviews and observations but I also reflect upon my own physical experience with various sleeping modes or gained from the position of both the subject and supervisor of sleep medicine. By way of employing qualitative research methods I map the sphere of sleep as a social construct and its embedding as a value. I furthermore try to see how much the social construct of sleep can be influenced. I focus on the issue of the current value of sleep and the impacts on the formation of the social construct of sleep by society and a specific time period. I try to switch the perspective, too: my goal is to identify whether sleep is such a resistant phenomenon on the grounds of its biological essence so that it can withstand or at least moderate these forces. I take a theoretical recourse to medical anthropology and use it as my initial perspective. I employ the concept of biopower and risk society, as well as the methodology of carnal anthropology. Due to its inconspicuousness and hiddenness, I consider the phenomenon of sleep and other...
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Selected aspects of the production of embodiment in tv commercials
Kurucová, Natálie ; Charvát, Martin (advisor) ; Řehořová, Irena (referee)
Thesis Selected aspects of the production of embodiment in tv commercials works with an assumption that some tv commercials represent specific modality of discursive mechanisms of sexual representation. This thesis applies the works of M. Foucault and P. Bourdieu to semiotic analysis of chosen advertisements. Assuming that advertisements are using body and sexual motives as one of the instruments of power to affect the target groups. Main focus of this thesis is in introduction of discursive models that are used in advertising. Goal of the theoretical part is to introduce philosophical and sociological ideas and theories relating to perception of physicality, sexuality, power relations and question of subjectivism. The thesis also shows how the role of a body was perceived in different historicals eras and how the ways of use of body and embodiment has gradually developed in terms of power affection. Goal of the practical part is to analyze and interpret the acknowledgments from theoretical part on concrete examples. The aim is, by using semiotical analysis, to reveal discursive practices in advertisements based upon used statements, also to analyze the power affection presented by physicality and sexuality. The thesis presents examples of power affection of advertisements and its specific...
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The Biomedical Construction of "Health"
Nová, Nikola ; Kolářová, Kateřina (advisor) ; Kiczková, Zuzana (referee)
Nikola Žáková The Biomedical Construction of "Health" Thesis Prague 2014 ABSTRACT This thesis focuses on the analysis of biomedical categories of "health", "illness" and "prevention". The aim is to determine how these categories are used in two case studies - "diabethes melitus 2" and "hepatitis B, C" - in the periods 1989-1990, 1995-1996, 2002-2003 , 2006-2007. "Health" is currently conceived as a "norm" that we should strive to meet. Through categories of "health", "disease", "prevention" and through the action of the discourse of risk and individual responsibility (for health of ourself and also for the health of the entire community), is desribed how the normative social expectations about health are shaped in the medical articles. We constantly monitor our health and we manage our behavior according to the potential "risks". This thesis examines how the institution of medicine influences the lives of individuals in society, on the basis of content analysis and discourse analysis of case studies from the renowned medical journal Časopis lékařů českých. Keywords: health, disease, prevention, risk, biopower, (self)disciplining
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Interactions between non-governmental organization and women working in an enviroment of street sex work
Pachová, Katarína ; Stöckelová, Tereza (advisor) ; Szénássy, Edit (referee)
This diploma thesis deals with the relations created between social workers and women, providing paid sexual services, in the area of street work environment. The thesis shows us the process of creation of these relations on the basis of the specific position of its actors, such as the stigmatized sex workers and "the wise" ones in the area of social work. However, these positions are not fixed. Social workers, as well as sex workers transform and redefine them, by using their own ways of understanding to categories such as trust, authority and process of self definition. The relations between the actors are mainly created on the basis of the topic of health that enters this environment through the harm reduction approach. This approach is also responsible for bringing an attention to actual health of sex workers but moreover an attention towards group of these women as such. Nevertheless, in the process of actual field research, were these categories shown as to be part of a larger picture of topic like motherhood and partnership. The last chapter of this thesis discusses the approach towards these topics during the contact with social workers. Keywords sex work, non-governmental organization, harm reduction approach, field social workers, stigma, health, biopower, motherhood
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The reasons for force feeding prisoners at Guantanamo in the context of Foucault's theory of Power
Polák, Michal ; Hájek, Martin (advisor) ; Maršálek, Jan (referee)
Aim of this paper is to explain used forced feeding of hunger strikers at the U.S. Prison at Guantanamo, when this technique is prohibited in international law. I used the sociology of Michel Foucault, who devoted himself to the topic of imprisonment. His work is often used in the interpretation of what is happening at Guantanamo. With the help of these interpretations were generated two hypotheses. I tested compiled hypotheses in study of literature including news articles, research papers, reports of human rights organizations, legislation, interviews with former camp detainees or camp staff etc. We conclude that the prisoners at Guantanamo are not fed to be kept alive, but rather to be punished for a hunger strike protest. The conclusions highlight a new form of relationship between state and its citizens, which calls for more comprehensive analysis of current form of government, which we are not able to cover in this work.
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Political discourse of infertility in the years 1989 - 2012 in the Czech Republic
Kostelecká, Hana ; Dudová, Radka (advisor) ; Vávra, Martin (referee)
This thesis describes and analyses discourses that preceded the legislation changes regarding assisted reproduction in connection with setting an upper age limit for women who are undergoing assisted reproduction treatments in socialist system as well as in democratic system. This work defined discourses of both political systems compares with the accent on governmentality as a tool for population control. This analysis is valuable primarily because of describing principles of working the whole "system of assisted reproduction" and provides insight into the political discourse of infertility, respective on its part concerning the Czech legislation taking into account the phenomenon of reproductive tourism. No one from the topics - both the political discourse of infertility then the reproductive tourism have not had been in the Czech literature written up yet. The work shows the establishment of proper parenting standards in the political discourse through the topic of artificial insemination. Key words Infertility, assisted reproduction, reproductive tourism, discourse, frames, normality of motherhood, prekarization of infertility, governmentality, biopower, Michel Foucault
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Depiction of Media in British Dystopian Fiction
Bakič, Pavel ; Clark, Colin Steele (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
The thesis aims to give an overview of the treatment of media in texts that have formed modern dystopian writing and to which new additions in the genre necessarily relate. This set of texts consists of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and When the Sleeper Awakes by H. G. Wells; first chapter substantiates this selection and proceeds to define the concepts of "media" and "dystopia". Second chapter is concerned with the understanding of history in dystopian societies and shows that the very concept of historicity is undesirable for a totalitarian state, which seeks to blur history and reduce it to a three-point schema "before the Event - the Event (revolution) - after the Event". Closer analysis then shows that the Event itself can be divided into a further triad that has to be completed in order to pass into eternal post-Event society. Third chapter describes the use of citizens as media and shows that while Huxley's society uses what Michel Foucault calls "biopower" to achieve this goal, Orwell's society rather uses the concept of "discipline". Fourth chapter turns to printed media a the privileged role they are ascribed in the novels: The authors see literature as an embodiment of individuality and, at the same time, as a guarantee of tradition established by an...
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"One can meet the responsibilities of life only when he is healthy and strong." Representation of body in the journal Výchova tělesná
Fiedler, Ondřej ; Himl, Pavel (advisor) ; Hanulík, Vladan (referee)
In my thesis, I aim to analyze the representation of body in the Czech scholarly texts dealing with physical education published in the early 20th century in the journal Výchova tělesná. I work on the anthropological assumption that understanding and interpretation of body changes along with the historical, social, cultural and ideological contexts. There are many areas of knowledge that define the correctness and naturalness of a physical appearance, behavior and conduct. The theory of school physical education, which since the 2nd half of the 19th century prescribes norms of physical fitness as a prerequisite for success in the national, economic and social life, is one of those areas. The interpretation starts with the analysis of descriptions of physical exercises, which is the most original part of discourse of the physical education, and analysis of texts that thematise the body in relation to mind. At this level, I explain what meanings are related to a pre-understanding of the body. In the second, principal part of the thesis, I interpret the process of construction of norms of appropriate body and show what techniques are required to implement them and how they are legitimized. Producing of normative meanings will be referred to the three major ideologies: gender, discipline and health....
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