2) Choose a public pedagogy approach and outline how this might disrupt dominant narrative/discourse

3) In recognising that not everything everywhere can be pedagogy – what makes your chosen approach a more potentially powerful educational force (consider your audience) for social change i.e. why is this public pedagogy approach useful?
-BM

(1) Public intellectualism and social activism

(2) Informal and public spaces 

(3) Citizenship within and beyond schools

(4) Popular culture and everyday life

(5) Dominant cultural discourses

- BM

The representation of the ‘chav’ – the ‘white poor’ (Tyler 2008) – through the media (i.e. newspapers, television and the internet), ‘has become a vehicle for explicitly exhibiting ontological class antagonisms’ (Francombe-Webb and Silk 2016). Tyler (2008) reiterates this: she argues that the image of the ‘chav’ depicts the working classes as ‘dole-scroungers, petty criminals, football hooligans and teenage pram-pushers’ (Lewis 2004), and in doing so, reproduces culturally dominant working-class stereotypes – that all working-class people are troublesome, lazy and ‘work shy’.  

The reproduction of culturally dominant working-class stereotypes, has ‘real’, and sometimes detrimental effects on individuals. By invoking middle-class disgust (for the working classes) (Adkins and Skeggs; Lawler 2005; Sayer 2002; Tyler 2008), it not only has negative implications on the health and well being of working class individuals (Fuller-Rowell et al 2012), but it functions to maintain power relations, social hierarchies and patterns of inclusion and exclusion (Ahmed 2004). Tyler (2006) supports this: she argues that ‘the level of disgust mobilized by the figure of the chav… marks a new episode of class struggle in Britain’ (p.1). Given that the media is a public pedagogy that enables the maintenance of hegemony (Giroux 2000), via the reproduction of culturally dominant ideologies and discourses, it is essential that public pedagogues intervene to challenge the cultural reproduction of class inequalities, through the media.

One pedagogical approach that has the potential to disrupt classism is blogging. As suggested by O’Donnell (2006), blogging is an intentioned pedagogic practice, situated beyond formal sites of schooling, that enables individuals to publicize personal and professional knowledge, problematize policy, raise awareness, engender support, and ultimately, challenge public opinion. The blog ‘Class Action’ demonstrates this: it provides a ‘safe space, for people of all backgrounds to identify and address issues of class and classism’ (Class Action n.d.). As a pedagogical approach, that engenders dissenting voices, blogging creates the possibility of alternative futures (Dennis 2014). 

- NP

-          Citizenship within and beyond schools

-          pedagogical theory on popular culture and everyday life

-          Informal institutions and public spaces as educative arenas

-          Dominant cultural discourses

-          Public intellectualism and social activism


Essentially meaning Public Pedagogy explores the wider context of transferring knowledge from one source to another (beyond schooling). E.G. social media affects contemporary society, as public pedagogy governs cultural discourses. e.g. Instagram shames obese bodies and promotes healthism. -  This is supported by Supported by (Miah and Rich 2008) as they suggests – 

“Various institutions, popular and cultural sources such as reality television, consumer culture, internet-based tools and video gaming technologies focused on weight loss and body perfection provide new means through which young people come to understand their bodies, weight and social worth”.

Felix Savedra

By JENNY HOPE, Daily Mail

By JULIA HARTLEY-BREWER, The Telegraph 

By DENISE WINTERMAN, BBC News

By ANDREW GREGORY, The Mirror

By KATIE GIBBONS, The Times

By representing children as innocent victims of poor parenting , they shift the blame, for childhood obesity, away from food advertising, food corporations, and ultimately, the state, towards parents (Zivkovik et al 2010) . 

The shifting of blame away from the state, towards parents, typifies neoliberal governance, since children are unable to take responsibility for their health, and thus, challenge the neoliberal ideal of individualised embodiment (Evans et al 2011). 

In 2014, following a minor drop in grassroots participation, Sport England announced its plans to cut funding to 6 sports: football, hockey, rowing, golf, netball and mountaineering. As noted by Jerrard (2014) ‘the most high profile of these cuts was a £1.6 million reduction in funding for football.’ 

In the wake of this announcement, Sport England’s chief executive Jennie Price not only called for private corporations to do more to develop grassroots sport (Bond 2014), but also, requested that people volunteer more. Whilst some private corporations, such as Chelsea and Arsenal have the money to invest in grassroots sport, most people are not in the position to be able to take up ‘unpaid work’. As Kelemen et al (n.d.) suggest ‘people’s participation in volunteering work may be conditioned by constraints related to other activities, such as paid work and personal caring commitments’ (p.3). 

Therefore, replacing state funding with individual action may seem like a great idea on paper, however, it is totally infeasible. The infeasibility of relying on sport volunteers, will inevitably have a profound impact on the development of grassroots level sport. 

 2) What are the potential positive and negative implications for your potential future Professions?
As an aspiring primary school teacher, the shift towards neoliberal governance, is likely to have a profound impact upon me in my future profession. Since the advent of neoliberalism, teaching, as a profession has been dramatically reformed (Levin 1998). These reforms, have engendered what Lyotard (1984) refers to as the terrors of performativity. 

As suggested by Ball (2003) performativity is quintessential form of neoliberal governance - ‘a technology, a culture and a mode of regulation that employs judgements, comparisons and displays as a means of incentive, control and change – based on rewards and sanctions’ (Ball 2003, p.216). Whilst research demonstrates that the intensification of performativity measures, within schools, may enhance teacher’s professional confidence (Kable 2001; Kilderry 2015), it suggests that intensification of performativity measures can also have serious negative implication on teachers, and thus, on the way in which they teach. For instance, Bradbury’s (2014) study, that explored the impact of statutory assessment on teachers, found that some teachers feel that they have lost ‘legitimacy’ and thus, no longer feel confident in their own teaching abilities. Similarly, Barblett’s (2000) study, revealed that teachers feel threatened and de-professionalised by new performativity measures, as their professional autonomy is undermined, and their professional judgement disregarded. Therefore, there is copious evidence to suggest that an era of neoliberalism will have negative implications for me in my future profession, as a primary school teacher. 

3) The 'big society' invites entrepreneurship, corporate sponsors and commercial partnerships to sport, physical activity and health contexts. What are your views on this? Prepare a position for or against. 
The privatization of the health care system is, in my opinion, a bad thing because:

·         By transforming the citizen into a consumer, it undermines the ability of poorer socio-economic groups to access healthcare.

·         It reduces the quality of healthcare; private companies prioritise making money, over providing quality care.

·         Health care professionals would move across to the private system, and thus, waiting times, in the public system, would increase. 

http://nhap.org/whats-wrong-privatising-nhs/

4) How do your cultural artefacts/readings/understandings of neoliberalism inform this perspective? 
My understandings of neoliberalism, as a political economic and social ideology that advances the market driven orientations of late capitalism by levying ‘a mantra of personal responsibility and accountability through individualizing social control and governance, thereby relieving city government from civic obligation’ (Silk and Andrews 2006, p.317)  inform this perspective because it enables me to view the privatization of the healthcare system as a purely profit-driven enterprise. 

- NP

 In this campaign, Reebok sell a lifestyle, one which is laden with Reebok clothing and equipment. Part of grander individualised politics, this campaign advocates individual agency to determine health and in a sense promotes a hyper-active form of Carpe Diem In which the elusive figure hangs ominously determining how many days (preferably active) she has left.  Is the Reebok campaign profiting over individual anxieties of people's sense of impending mortality, promoting an egalitarian healthism agenda or does this campaign do both?

Pros: Advocacy of conducting conduct in a decentralized manner, away from government spending on health campaigns. Therefore Reebok save money on government initiatives like Change 4 Life. Reebok advocates healthy quotidian activity in order to make use of Your Days. Big Societies success is on the conduct of its citizens if all are assuming daily activity they are averting risky behaviors. 

Cons:

·         Ignores Structural Determinants of health

·         Selling products for a profit? Plastic Altruism?

·         Essentialize’s life to  global mortality rates and quantifies health

Exploring how ‘neoliberalism’ manifests itself within various real life contexts, also enabled me to realize that in most social policy contexts, the Government have not withdrawn their support completely; instead, they have cultivated individualization, self-monitoring and responsibilisation by cutting costs for efficiency, decentralizing services, and increasing the number of performativity measures. Therefore, having attended the seminar, I now believe that neoliberalism is a lot less clear and straightforward in the real world than it is in theory. Given that this idea is further demonstrated by the literature on mental health (Ferguson 2007; Monblot 2016) I intend to take it forward, and expand on it in my reflective journal, in relation to my grand challenge – mental illness amongst youths. 

- NP

BM

One crisis associated with sport, physical activity and health, that has emerged within the contemporary moment is physical inactivity. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), physical inactivity is a global public health problem that causes approximately 3.2 million deaths every year. The World Heart Federation reinforce this: they claim that insufficient physical activity is the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality. Physical inactivity was first recognised as a public concern, in the 1950s, when biomedical research ‘pointed to a range of associations between inactivity and illhealth’ (Gard and Wright 2001, p.536). However, it is only recent years, as a result of the decline in physical activity levels (Bauman et al 2008) and the increase in obesity and chronic disease (Borodulin et al 2007; Tjepkema 2005), that concerns have begun to dominate political policy and rhetoric. 

Many scholars have identified a link between the physical activity level and mental health of adolescents. Such scholars suggest that physical activity can have beneficial effects on the mental health of adolescents (Paluska and Schwenk 2000). For instance, Craft and Perna (2004) argued that physical activity may alleviate depressive symptoms as it leads to an increased release of B-endorphins. Similarly, Ekeland et al (2004) claimed that physical activity can both directly and indirectly enhance self-esteem. Therefore, despite concern about the quality of such studies (Van Dijk et al 2016), there is reason to believe that the increase in mental illness (i.e. depression) amongst adolescents, may be linked to the ‘physical inactivity crisis’ – the global decline in physical activity levels. 

One way in which you could address the growth of mental illness amongst youths, is through blogging. According to Boniel-Nissam and Barak (2011) regularly writing a blog can improve self-esteem, reduce distress, and increase engagement in social activities. Kazdin and Rabbitt (2013) reinforce this: they argue that the very nature of blogs and social networking sites (e.g., sharing thoughts, feelings, information with others) makes it possible for individuals to dispel their stress. They also suggest that blogging is ‘an ideal forum for identifying high-risk individuals and those in need of mental health resources’ (ibid p.181).

For more on this see: http://www.sun.ac.za/english/entities/welgevallen-community-psychology-clinic/Documents/Kazdin%20delivering%20mental%20health%20services.pdf 
 
-NP.

One contemporary crisis that is affecting more and more school children across the UK is the emphasis placed on competitive school sport and the resulting decline of physical activity for all. Ofsted has recently called for state schools to ensure that competitive sport is able to thrive within state schools and is not primarily reserved for private schools. This means that those who are deemed ‘not good enough’ but are still keen to enjoy physical education and school sport could easily miss out. This not only has impact on problems surrounding the obesity epidemic, but it becomes a social justice issue. Hills (2007 and Cockburn & Clarke (2002) all note that PESS has the potential to bring about great positive change in relation to obesity, body image, confidence and social skills; however, they also note that the pressure placed on students to be competitive and the continued drive towards fostering elite athlete’s means that those who aren’t good enough miss out. They miss out on an essential part of their development as people and they often become disinterested in physical activity later in life as a result of bad experiences.  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/11350940/Not-on-the-team-Then-no-more-sport-for-you.html- Anecdotal article discussing how a group of women’s children have essentially been omitted from sport because they didn’t make the team. 

AC

Sport is now widely viewed as a microcosm of society. But elite level sport with its burgeoning significance brings with it a widening array of issues. Within the contemporary world of commercialized sport, as large sums of money have become ever-available, increased legal regulation and litigation has become a reality.The illegal sports gambling world was recently estimated to have an economic value of £320 billion per year (Singh,2013). The potential for profit in this market far outweigh the risks of being caught, and thus match-fixing in football hasbecome an irresistible business proposition for organized crime (Haberfeld & Sheehan, 2013). It is widely held that this problem cannot be managed by sport institutions themselves. This is largely because of a lack of international sports gambling governance (McNamee, 2013).

The proliferation of gambling and problem gambling in the late 20th and 21st centuries is in part a result of the commercial expansion of the industry itself. But equally important is the growth of new discursive formations that develop in con-

junction with changes in the structure of Western economies and reflect wider contradictions within them. These trends of liberalization and proliferation can be located within wider changes in Western economies, most notably, the move toward political and fiscal policies of neoliberalism and the rejection of broadly Keynesian principles of market regulation. These are characterized by the state’s reduced intervention in social and economic life, its decreasing responsibility for the provision of public services, and its promotion of competitive enterprise. In particular, this “minimal state” is characterized by increasing unwillingness to levy unpopular taxation on voting populations. In the revenue vacuum created by such policies, the economic utility of gambling as a voluntary, albeit regressive, form of taxation to state and federal coffers is obvious. Through direct involvement in lotteries and extensive taxation of commercial operations, states extract vital revenue from games of  chance with which to fund public services.

 

Gambling with your health and well-being?

Turner et al. (2006) found that severity of problem gambling was strongly correlated with depression, anxiety and reliance on escape to cope with stress, suggesting that emotional factors play a larger role in the development of problem gambling. According to the general theory of addiction model proposed by Jacobs (1988;see also Gupta and Derevensky

1998b), a person develops a gambling problem because of a chronic stress condition. Medical practitioners see first-hand the devastating consequences of gambling, which impacts not only on the physical and mental health of individual gamblers, but also on the well being of their families. Problem gamblers have a higher than average number of visits to a GP, and experience an increased incidence of physical illnesses such as hypertension, insomnia, migraine and other stress-related problems. Patients with problem gambling often present symptoms that appear unrelated to gambling, such as depression, anxiety, stomach upsets, headaches, and other stress-related symptoms of physical and psychological ill health.

 

Research carried out in 2014 by the ICSS in conjunction with the University of Sorbonne, Paris, revealed that 80% of global sport betting is illegally transacted and therefore invisible to regulators and investigators (ICSS, 2014). As part of its findings the report recommended a number of methods that governments, sports organizations, betting regulators,

and operators could adopt in order to combat match-fixing and unlawful gambling. These recommendations included creating a sports-betting tax to finance investigations into match-fixing and illegal betting; establishing an integrity risk assessment and management system for sports organizations; and prohibiting players, coaches, and administrators from

betting on competitions and matches within their sport (ICSS, 2014).

 
H Booth

 

•   Identify a particular contemporary crisis associated with sport, physical activity & health & describe how it has emerged at this conjunctural moment.

 

A major issues regarding sport, physical activity and health would be the increasing issues of inactivity (Hills et al., 2007). Young people are participating in physical activity (PA) less than ever before (Hills et al., 2014), and without school PE some children would simply not participate in any form of PA per week (Green, 2014). It is commonly stated that cases of obesity and sedentary lifestyles and multiplying, and gaining knowledge and understanding on the factors that affect physical activity habits are of immense importance (Dagkas & Stathi, 2007). The crisis reached the conjunctural moment when obesity levels rose at the same time as levels of physical activity dropped. As a result, the media portrayed this crisis and it has now become a leading issue that this nation is facing. 

 

•   How is this impacting the particular grand challenge you are interested in?

 

My grand challenge is looking at class based inequalities. Here, is can suggested that an individual’s social class impacts accessibility and opportunities to participate in physical activity. For example, an individual’s access to open spaces within a community, or opportunities to participate in schools (Sallis et al, 1992). With the increased pressure to reach academic results and top league tables, some state schools are substituting PE lessons for extra academic lessons. As a result, students educated in a state-funded school can be getting as little as 1 hour of PE a week, compared to counter private educated athletes receiving almost triple the amount of sports (Telegraph, 2015). Subsequently, the effects of having a reduced or negative experience of PE can hinder participation in students and most importantly negatively influence habitual behaviour leading into adulthood (Smith & Parr, 2007). This leads to repercussions on the current health status of many young people (Sallis et al., 1992; Patterson, 2004) and fuels the obesity epidemic (HM Government, 2016). 

 

·      How would you address this through a public pedagogy approach?

 

In order to address this issue, I would use Public Intellectualism. By inviting a person with power to educate people on the importance of physical activity, and how a strong habitus positively correlates with future participation rates, I believe this could help contribute to the debates surround the lack of state school PE, and attempt to bring about change. 

 

Artefact

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11490591/Independent-schools-do-almost-triple-amount-of-sports-than-state-counterparts.html

CT

FS

In addition to reaffirming and further broadening my understandings of the concept of ‘moral panic’ the seminar enhanced my awareness of some of its criticisms. For instance, I learnt that public anxiety surrounding particular conditions, episodes, persons or group of persons are more constant than the concept of ‘moral panic’ has led us to believe. Having since engaged with Hunt’s (1999) work on ‘moral regulation’, I would agree that such anxiety does not just appear and then disperse; instead it is a long-term process, that occurs to monitor the moral conduct of society as a whole. 

-NP.

(2) What is the impact of Web 2.0 on this socio-cultural issue? How does it contribute to it, challenge or disrupt it?
BM

·         According to Goffman (1959) people have the desire to control how others see them. Social media enables individuals to do this. The image that they create through social media, with the purpose of creating a good impression of themselves, may not be consistent with their true self. 

·         Computer mediated communication can result in people making altered (and often wrong) impressions of others, i.e. that someone is always happy, or that they have the perfect body. 

·         Chou and Edge’s (2012) study reinforces this: it found that Facebook users often report that ‘life is not fair.’

·         Researchers have now proposed a new phenomenon called ‘Facebook Depression’. This term is used to describe the depression that develops when preteens and teens start to exhibit depressive symptoms having spent a great deal of time on social media sites (O’Keeffe and Clarke-Pearson 2011) 

·         Companies now have less control over the information available about them in cyberspace due to social media sites, such as Wikipedia. 

·         As social media sites may take the place of face-to-face interactions, they may negatively influence social relationships, lead to loneliness, social isolation etc (Kraut et al 1998). 

·         Social media sites (blogs, collaborative projects, social networking sites) provide a platform in which people can critique products/ companies (Ward and Ostrom 2006) and harass/ bully individuals (O’Keeffe and Clarke-Pearson 2011; Patchin and Hinduja 2006) 

·         Lenhart’s (2009) study found that social media use is linked with bullying, clique-forming and sexual experimentation. 

·         Content communities, such as YouTube, may be used as platforms for the sharing of illegal content/ copyright-protected materials (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). 

·         Social media can be used by companies to share recruiting videos, promote their products (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010), and for marketing research purposes (Kozinets 2002).  

·         It can also be used in a similar way by athletes, sporting NGO’s etc. 

·         Social media sites offer a means of socialization and communication. As a result, they can lead to increased social networks and raised self-esteem (Gonzalez and Hancock 2011)

·         They also offer:

o   Opportunity for community engagement

o   Enhancement of individual and collective creativity 

o   A site for expression.

·         People can access health information easily and anonymously via social media (unfortunately this information isn’t always accurate) 

·         You can also meet people who is suffering from the same illnesses/ conditions as you and thus, develop your support network (Lenhart et al 2010)

·         Finally, and possibly most importantly, they offer a means to challenge dominant ways of thinking (Betton et al 2015) i.e. to highlight the problem of mental health in young people, or to change people’s attitudes towards mental illness. In other words, to operate as a public pedagogy (Sandlin et al 2011)!

https://www.ymadvocacy.org/social-media-mental-illness-the-good-and-the-bad/

-NP

Regarding my grand challenge that is based on inequalities in school; the use of technologies can further exacerbate inequalities in schools. Typically, it is assumed that if an individual has a private physical education, they have greater chances of achieving elite success (Sutton Trust, 2012; Smith, Haycock & Hulme, 2013).  Private or independently funded schools have greater resources and access buy or experiment with technology compared to state funded institutions. Therefore private educated students may have greater opportunities to engage in various technologies, for example, using IPad’s and Video analysis programmes and therefore will undergo a more scientific, accurate, professional and technological analyse of their performance.  

The use of technology and enhancing sport facilities and equipment is generally an expensive proposition, and therefore the benefits derived tend to be limited to the upper end of sports hierarchy, for example elite athletes, of which often attend a private institution (Rosandich, 2008). Hence, due to the expense of technology, this process continues to increase the gap between those who can afford to acquire the “latest and the best” and those who cannot (Rosandich, 2008).  

 

Artefact - http://www.independent.co.uk/student/shu/evolving-athletic-performance-with-the-help-of-new-sports-technologies-10218641.html

CT

 

 

Fitness technologies such as tracking devices or mobile apps have become a new way of regulating society and disciplining individual’s in the neoliberal moment. As the roll back of state well fare and cuts to organisations like the NHS continue, the amount of people taking individual responsibility through bio-technologies increases.  The need for people to protect themselves has led to shift towards what Atkinson (1995) calls ‘surveillance medicine’. The emergence of surveillance technologies and the regulation of health have arguably created further inequality within schools because as Rich and Miah note, “focus of medicine is on the healthy population rather than the ill”, health is now concerned with the minimalizing of risk as opposed to the treatment of illness. If schools begin to focus on using so called ‘bio-technologies’ on a wide scale I strongly believe that inequality levels will rise between those that have access to these technologies and those who do not. Naturally private funded schools which have greater budgets will be able to afford fitness technologies, while state funded schools or academies will struggle, supported by Rich and Miah who point out that health will be focused towards those that are already healthy. 

The greater inequality that would result from the use of technologies will arguably decrease the levels of high quality physical education and school sport being delivered to pupils in schools with less funding. This will only exacerbate the issues surrounding continued participation after school and therefore contribute to the so called ‘obesity epidemic’.

Blast motion - tracks things like hang time in Basketball, Swing in gold etc... and send the information to a device. https://blastmotion.com/

https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/jul/28/wearable-technology-classroom-virtual-reality - Article explaining some of the available technology that could be used in schools. Not sport specific however the general conclusion is that current technologies or too expensive and aren’t useful enough. 

AC

Although I remained open-minded to other student’s ideas during the seminar, comments such as: Web 2.0 is “an emerging structure of platforms, that enables and encourages active participation, and in doing so, has totally transformed and revolutionized the way in which individuals use the web” (Student A), only served to reinforce my views. 

In addition to reinforcing my views, the seminar discussions encouraged me to consider both the risks and opportunities of Web 2.0. A number of my peers, were particularly concerned with the impact that multi-media platforms, such as facebook and twitter, are having on elite sport. One even commented on the padlet that ‘with the media having such a large influence in sport, it is becoming apparent that sports are becoming more and more unstable which is a massive issue’. Whilst I agree that social media can have a detrimental impact on sports performance, I am more concerned with the impact that it has on health; particularly that of children and young people. 

- NP

UltraShape is a ‘state-of-the-art fat-reduction device that uses gentle ultrasound technology to destroy fat’ (UltraShape 2015) that is otherwise, impossible to get rid of. It has been described as the ‘new fat erasure’. Whilst it does not provide a means to solve obesity, and thus, cannot beat liposuction or a tummy tuck, it does provide an effective and ‘wince free’ means of losing weight and achieving a slimmer waistline (Krieger 2015). A package of three treatments typically costs $2700. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXjycDLiBGc 

2.       Curb Appetite Suppressant

Curb Appetite Suppressant is a drug that you can buy off websites such as Amazon. It kills hunger cravings, and thus, enables rapid weight loss. 

Genetic testing to decide which children or young people could benefit from specialised sports training may lead to parents, teachers and coaches proposing what they believe the child should specialise in, rather than allowing the child to decide what they would like to experience. Genetic information could then become yet another tool for stratification in sport. This could take place in schools through selection for talent ID programmes and scholarship schemes, or more generally, at an interpersonal level whereby coaches and teachers could devote more time to young people that show ‘genetic potential’ at the expense of others (Miah & Rich, 2006).  

In the UK, discourses of ‘ability’ are now separating the able and less able and therefore identifying the winners and losers at a very early age, permitting ongoing checks to make sure the predicted successful ones reach their potential. However, this raises concerns about premature stratification, for example, what abilities might be overlooked that may later develop in young people?  

Moreover, where genetic testing is involved, the instinctive and enjoyable aspects of physical activity may be overlooked. Therefore, this questions whether genetic testing will not only gain information about the body, but may also constitute it, through framing and guiding young people’s experiences and opportunities in physical activity. Consequently, this can increase the pressure on the ‘able’ ones to follow a specific sport and practise to a certain level to achieve the ‘potential’ they are expected to reach (Miah & Rich, 2006). 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/sports/30genetics.html 

CT 

(2) What are the implications of this technology for sport, athletes, coaches, overweight individuals etc (e.g. what new modes of subjectivity are created and managed)?

(3) Who should decide the future of your chosen (& other) biotechnologies in sport & health? E.g. medical profession, ethicists, parents, teachers, organisations?

(4) Will this decision to treat biological technologies are morally impermissible stand the test of time in an era where people are increasingly willing to modify themselves & where sport is a spectacle?

BM

Whilst I recognise that technology can improve the human condition, I would not regard myself as a transhumanist. Like many sport studies scholars (Hoberman 1992; Rintala 1995), I believe that attempting to make oneself ‘better than well’ can actually result in ‘dehumanization’ – a process whereby a person or group becomes deprived of their ‘human element’ (Rintala 1995), and thus, that the conflation of technology and the body should be resisted. One of my fellow students concurred: he argued that “the notion of performance enhancing technologies is inherently dehumanizing” and thus, proposed that “we should be only using technology for repairative purposes; not to enhance the “average” or “normal” body”. 

-NP

*Jeff Weaver, manager of the Bernie Sanders’s campaign, recently criticised Hilary Clinton for showing a manly quality - being overly ambitious (http://www.teenvogue.com/story/hillary-clinton-laughs-too-ambitious-attack) 

-       Optimization – making everything function to the best of its ability. Making sure everything is operating at a high level. Functioning to maximum capacity. 

-       Freeing yourself from the burden of the physical ‘fleshy’ body – e.g. amputees using blades. 

-       Eventually moving beyond the physical body. 

 

Post – surface about after humanism but it’s more about troubling/blurring humanism. 

A literal coming together of bodies and technologies. Conflation of ‘thing’ and flesh. Things we imbed or wear on the body. E.g. Nano technologies. 

 

Humanism – what it means to be human? Life, liberty and happiness. People should be free and values we ascribed to being a person and part of society. 

 

Together - Posthumansim – developing the capacity to modify our genes, this raises questions about what it a human? Is this for the better/worse. Does it make a society more/less equal? Some of the ideas of ‘what it means to be a human?’ is thrown into disarray. 

 

Transhumanism – 

-       The idea that people should make themselves better than well. Examples, visions (Tiger Woods – superior eyesight). 

 

Trans – going beyond human capacity and the typically boundaries of human ability

People who are transhumanist view this as a positive (Feenburgs instrumental viewpoint). 

 

 

Cyborgification –

 

-       Having technology completely exposable. E.g. google glasses. 

Incorporating the technology into the body e.g. inserting technology into the body to help – compass into the chest. 

 

Discussions; 

 

-       Ethics around techno purely as a way of helping people who are disadvantaged. Should people be allowed to use techno if it is for the disadvantaged and should be allowed to bring yourself back to a normal state? However, normal people using drugs, surgery to better themselves in sport isn’t acceptable. As soon as it goes into a sporting environment to break new records isn’t acceptable. Raises questions about where to draw the line. 

For example, if you’re born without a bicep, and nanotechnology can bring you to a level on par with others – At what age do you make the choice/ are your parents making the decision. If you chose to take part in sport, will you be rejected because you have enhanced your body? In a sporting context; if the person with the nanotech bicep is serving in a tennis match at a very fast pace, is that fair? Do we need to know what the ‘general’ strength of the bicep? If so, the child then cannot play tennis. 

Difficult to answer in a time whereby technology is enhancing all the time. 

Example of Caster Semenya – perceived to exceed what is normal. 800m runner, elevated levels of testosterone. In London 2012, forced to take drugs to suppress her testosterone, after that was ‘deemed not acceptable’ she then had to compete without the suppressants. Unfortunate as she is born in a time when there is a blur between ‘what is accepted and what isn’t’? Her Nationality hasn’t helped, if she was GB she would be accepted. 

-       Diet pills – lead to anorexia, reduce someone’s appetite – give you anorexia as an obese person. This is because society deems obese to be negative and this is what drives people to take them anyway. 

 

(Biomedicalization – using techno, genetic modification to improve heath instead of using naturally occurring things. Presentation of biology in medical terms. 

Breaking it down – medicalizing of biology. Using a medical lens and applying that to our expanding/growing understanding of biology. What is an illness, and what isn’t?). 

 

-       Can/should we keep the divide between techo? Sport is reliant on techno. 

 

-       Slimming technologies – can complete in lunch break, kills fat. Focus gone away from curing ill health to focus on the image of the body. The focus should be on curing cancer, helping people who are ill, and not the people with a slight bit of fat. 

 

-       Also, the DNA test – testing children to see if they have slow twitch/fast twitch fibres. Negative – parents push their child into it – no choice. Teachers focus only on children that have talent, further dividing those that have and those that have not. Putting off other people that could be good at sport, also, lose out on talent that might develop later on. Parents and coaches – if they see ‘fast twitch’ pushes child into this. 

Other option - could take a swab test, send a letter home and let parents know a list of 10 sports that their child would be suited for. Not a specific sport that would push a child into a certain sport, it just offers a different way for people to develop. 

 

-       In Australia -   talent programmes – selected by teachers to go to these and then channelled into sports based on their talents/abilities. Doesn’t hamper grassroots performances because it’s seen as a positive if you’ve been selected, and not negative if you haven’t been selected. Those at grassroots can continue with sport. Doesn’t determine future, it just offers a different route. Another opportunity for kids that don’t have a chance to play in certain sports because they didn’t know they have an ability in that sport. However, issues with stigma, labelling. Would it work in the UK? However, different culture in the UK. 

-       Could we have an automated PE teacher? 

-       Ex-Machina – ethical consequences of this. Would a boxing match between 2 AI technologies be different from dog/cock fighting? If the artificial intelligence wants to fight, is that ok? Is it in our nature to fight, and if the artificial intelligence wants to fight and it’s safe for everyone then is this ok? 

-       Questioning human values, and to whom do we apply the rights that we assigned to human beings? How do people get along with these changes?