Suchergebnisse

AbstractA new term, autonomic imbalance (自律神經失調 or AI), which refers to a wide variety of physical and mental symptoms that are medically unexplained, has recently emerged in Taiwan. Many people compared this condition to neurasthenia, a now obsolete diagnosis. Whether neurasthenia and AI are medically the same or merely similar is a debate that is better left to clinicians; however, this article endeavours to explore the significance of the comparability in terms of socio-cultural theory of health. With Deleuze and Guattari's notion of minor literature as reference, the objectives of this paper are as follows: to address how and why neurasthenia and AI should be treated as 'minor diagnoses' and consequently expose the limitations of current clinical medicine; to provide and discuss reasons why AI can be seen as a reincarnated form of neurasthenia; and to further elaborate how this approach may elevate inquiries on the varieties of medically unexplained symptoms to highlight the bodies that suffer without a legitimate name.

AbstractHeibaika(Mandarin for black-and-white cards) are tools that Taiwanese parents use for infants below 3 months old. These cards are claimed to stimulate vision and enhance the brain. Although the scientific efficacy ofheibaikais questionable, the wide circulation of these cards illustrates the ways some try to urge laypeople to imagine and picture the infant brain. Thus, the use ofheibaikaconstitutes a good example of neuroparenting and neuroculture, where flourishing neuroscience transforms the parenting culture. In the present study, multiple methodologies are applied, and the emergence ofheibaikais identified as a twenty-first century phenomenon popularised by online forums and postpartum care centres, among many other channels.Heibaikaare contextualised in the globalisation of neuroparenting through translation since the 1990s and the rising anxiety of contemporary Taiwanese parents. Through interview analysis, parents are classified into believers, sceptics, and cautious experimenters. Their anticipations and worries are further elaborated. The paper concludes by highlighting its three major contributions: the importance of studying lay neuroscience as a way to rethink and problematise the boundary between science and culture, the enrichment of the concept of neuroparenting, and the emphasis on the dimension of globalisation and knowledge transmission.

Buprenorphine/naloxone (B/N) therapy is a prescription pharmacotherapy for opioid dependence. For certain health service providers, when B/N escapes supervision and diverts into the hands of people for whom it is unintended, it can pose serious risks even if it may still have therapeutic benefits. The line between therapy and diversion is thus a problematic one. By qualitatively analysing archival review and in‐depth interviews, this study uses the concept of a therapeutic assemblage to understand the relationships among government, knowledge, and professionals that surround the regulation of B/N in Taiwan. The therapeutic assemblage is characterised by the partitioning of administration, the loose regulation of prescription, the exclusion of addiction treatment from National Health Insurance (NHI), and the materiality and technicality of therapies. These elements contribute to the therapeutic assemblage's different territorial modes as reflected in the substance schedules that allow for diversion. This is the first grounded work in Asia that empirically examines and theoretically explains the diversion of B/N from an assemblage perspective. It suggests establishing new associations by incorporating addiction treatment into NHI. Lastly, it addresses the analytic purchase of the assemblage approach in unveiling and problematising unintended outcomes of an intervention.

This dissertation depicts and analyzes the emergence of Taiwan's harm reduction policy as a governmental strategy to address the epidemic of HIV/AIDS among intravenous drug users (IDUs). The policy is portrayed as a biopolitical project situated in Taiwan's unique history of drug control. It was made possible by the office , a heterogeneous assemblage of human and nonhuman actors and elements associated with each other by guanxi . Within this assemblage, different experts endeavored to educate themselves, make alliances, or establish a new profession. This policy fashioned citizen addicts on the one hand and offered opportunities for rethinking policy transplantation on the other. The study utilized archival research, in-depth interviews, and field observations as its data sources. The analysis was informed by the constructivist tradition of grounded theory, especially situational analysis. The concept of assemblages was used to address the fluid and transient situations encountered in the making of harm reduction policy. The theoretical implications of this study include: integrating the discussions of technoscience into a Foucaultian critique of modernity, reappraising the global and the local as explanatory terms, searching for a useful analytic frame such as the office or assemblages, de-centering Euro-American versions of biopolitics, studying the significance of short-lived events, and suggesting a new socio-epistemic position for experts.