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Intersexuality from the perspective of expert knowledge in the Czech republic
Lindnerová, Adéla ; Benešovská, Barbora (advisor) ; Wirthová, Jitka (referee)
This bachelor thesis deals with intersexuality from the perspective of expert knowledge in the Czech Republic. Its focus is on how experts approach bodies and sex, which they break down into parts that must eventually form a unified whole that can be assigned to one of the sex categories of male or female. This paper explores how expert knowledge approaches the concept of normality of bodies and sex and how it connects it to health. It shows the way in which sex binaries are shaped in medical discourse and how this binarity is socio-culturally conditioned. The research is based on qualitative analysis of 5 semi-structured interviews with representatives of Czech expert knowledge. The findings of the paper present that since experts treat intersex bodies as unhealthy and therefore not conforming to the social norm, medicine is proceeding with interventions to bring them closer to normality. The reasons for treating intersex diagnoses are rooted in society and are related not only to socialization and social order, but also to the setting of the Czech state. The binary sex division is legitimized by expert knowledge not only because of its naturalness but also because of its historical grounding.
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Argumentation for accepting of universal income: perspective of biopower.
Nykl, Matěj ; Hájek, Martin (advisor) ; Petrúšek, Ivan (referee)
My bachelor thesis is focusing on the argumentation for implementation of universal basic income. It is a system where every person receives a financial unconditional benefit regularly. There is a long history of this idea, originally presented by liberal authors. More attention has been given to this idea recently as it is sometimes declared as a potential sollution to the problems caused by robotization. Many experiments with universal income has been done by now. Left-wing authors present universal income as a tool for redistribution of wealth that should empower lower classes in the society nowadays. The aim of this bachelor thesis is the comparison between texts of liberal and left-wing proponents. The concept of Michel Foucault's biopower is beeing applied. It describes the moderm forms of governance. The articles about universal income are compared it the areas that are associated with the biopower concept. There are also texts that are not consistently using the liberal nor the left-wing argumentation. They were analysed too in order to be assesed wheater it fits to one of the ideological bases. Analysis of these articles highlights some aspects of liberal and left-wing argumentation for basic income implementation and therefore enhances the validity of conlcussions Keywords Universal...
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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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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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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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Differend and Biopower. Discursive Regulation of Covering Muslim Women in Czech republic
Balážová, Lucia ; Fišerová, Michaela (advisor) ; Marcelli, Miroslav (referee)
The diploma thesis combines the theoretical concepts of postmodernism and biopower, that are subsequently applied to the particular issue of covering Muslim women living in the Czech Republic. This problem includes the religious, gender, media, social and philosophical level. Each of them is supported by key authors who are experts in this issue. Michel Foucault's concept of biopower, that covers both social and individual bodies through power discourse, interferes with the clothing, that gender attribute, like the Muslim veil, is based on the ideas of Judith Butler. The priority is the ambivalent conception by Jean-François Lyotard, as a kind of conflict, the outlet of which is pluralistic debate. The aim of the thesis is to find a tolerant solution of the current erratic situation in the collision of European and Middle Eastern cultures in the Czech Republic, like wearing the Muslim veil, as the expression of Islam in public with applying Lyotard's demanding ethics of accepting pluralism as an alterity. Key words: postmodern, contradiction, biopower, Muslim veil, media discourse, gender, plurality
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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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The construction of motherhood and femininity from the point of view of three generations
Marková Volejníčková, Romana ; Dudová, Radka (advisor) ; Vidovičová, Lucie (referee) ; Nešporová, Olga (referee)
dissertation thesis: Construction of motherhood and feminity in the three generations Author: Mgr. Romana Marková Volejníčková This dissertation aims to analyze the norms of "good" motherhood, discourses, and social practices related to these norms, and their connection and interrelationship with the issue of agency and women's/mothers' free choice under specific conditions over the course of three defined periods. In particular, in this study, I focused on the prevalent conditions (be it legislation, i.e. family and social policies, expert discourses in the field of psychology, demography, pediatrics, etc., but also societal expectations of women within family and employment) during the three defined periods. I analyzed how individual standards of "good" motherhood and "proper" child care are defined and conceived under these circumstances, in which the interviewed mothers carried out their motherhood projects. Furthermore, I focused on what choices mothers could make in these normative conditions, what choices they considered available to them and realistic in each one period, and whether some of the mothers' personal traits may have bolstered or diminished their ability to make informed choices concerning their motherhood project. In the three periods examined, the manifestations of biopower...
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"The Invention" of Intelligence and its Reflection in Czech Pedagogical and Social-pedagogical Discourse, Based on Selected Academic Journals from 1888 to 1944.
Čechová, Anežka ; Kolářová, Kateřina (advisor) ; Herza, Filip (referee)
The thesis deals with intelligence, as a socio-cultural concept that has its own history and development. It thus deconstructs the naturalized notions of a biological "essence" of intelligence, which has not been proved to this day. The scientific and philosophical modes of thinking, that participated in both "inventing" intelligence and its forming, are introduced. The analysis of the primary sources enables to compass the reflection of these dominant scientific approaches towards intelligence in the Czech expert discourses. The thesis also reflects on the important role intelligence has in the assessment of mental norm and disability, and it thus analyses the perception of disability during the defined historical period, including the discourse analysis of the different representations of disability. Key words Intelligence, disability, craniometry, eugenics, pedagogy, medicine, biopower.
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