Loughborough University
Browse
Brave_New_Brains_Sociology_Family_and_th.pdf (217.36 kB)

Brave new brains: sociology, family and the politics of knowledge

Download (217.36 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2016-06-09, 11:45 authored by Val Gillies, Rosalind Edwards, Nicola Horsley
This article critically explores sociological arguments for greater biosocial synthesis, centring contemporary developments in public policy to demonstrate how such a reframing of humanity tends to reinforce existing political orders and socially patterned normativities. The case for further amalgamation of the social and life sciences is examined to suggest that production of somatic markers of truth from relational encounters largely relies upon an anaemic and politically contained version of the social as acquired in early childhood. More specifically, the gendered, classed and culturally specific practice of parenting children has come to occupy a new significance in accounts of social brains and environmentally reactive genomes. This is highlighted through a discussion of ‘early intervention’ as a heavily biologized policy rationale framing opportunities for biosocial collaboration. It is argued that late capitalist objectives of personal investment and optimization are driving this assimilation of the social and life sciences, pursuing an agenda that traces and re-scores long-standing social divisions in the name of progress.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies

Published in

The Sociological Review

Volume

64

Issue

2

Pages

219 - 237

Citation

GILLIES, V., EDWARDS, R. and HORSLEY, N., 2016. Brave new brains: sociology, family and the politics of knowledge. Sociological Review, 64 (2), pp.219-237.

Publisher

© John Wiley & Sons

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2016

Notes

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: GILLIES, V., EDWARDS, R. and HORSLEY, N., 2016. Brave new brains: sociology, family and the politics of knowledge. Sociological Review, 64 (2), pp.219-237, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.12374. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.

ISSN

0038-0261

eISSN

1467-954X

Language

  • en