Hauntology has become an increasingly alluring concept in social sciences to reflect upon everyday life and how subjects dwell upon scenarios pervaded not only by the potency of the actual but also the haunting of the past and the virtual. Drawing on the concept of 'hauntology', we inquire about recurring temporalities and spectrality themes concerning the 'controversial' diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in Chile. Using participant observation and in-depth interviews with health practitioners, teachers, school staff, diagnosed children, and their peers from 3-year-long research, we examine how the performance of the diagnosis by clinicians at times can produce a modification of the temporality of the diagnosed children from that moment forth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article draws upon findings from fieldwork conducted with Chilean mental health practitioners and school staff to explore how children's mental health diagnoses can be used in the school setting as a particular rationale to mobilise and convey new forms of care practices (Mol, The logic of care: Health and the problem of patient choice, 2008). Inspired by the framing of care as an interrelational, interdependent and more-than-human affair promoted by Science and Technology Studies, and drawing from conceptual tools offered by post-humanist approaches, we focus our examination on the diagnosis of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Following the diagnosis since its formulation by clinicians in the public sector to its enactment in an urban school in Santiago, Chile, we explore how certain caring/uncaring practices are enacted in relation to the diagnosis, reconfiguring the classroom by incorporating (non)human actors to care for the diagnosed child.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF