This paper aims at contributing to ongoing reflections among historians on the empirical uses of ... more This paper aims at contributing to ongoing reflections among historians on the empirical uses of Michel Foucault’s analyses by reflecting on a series of partly interrelated concepts that appeared at different moments in his work. The social reasons for and practicalities of contemporary “biopolitics” are analyzed through a study of the transformations of public health campaigns promoting preventive measures in France in the 20th century. I begin by briefly reassessing the evolution in the way health messages were conceived and various (audio) visual media were used, from the interwar period to the early 1970s. Then, I expound the context of the invention, a few years later, of a new form of public health action: the “large national campaign of prevention,” drawn from commercial advertising and road safety campaigns. Finally, I analyze the radical reframing of its communication strategy undertaken by the French Committee for Health Education, from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, as ...
The aim of this article is to shed light on the rise to international prominence of the Italian s... more The aim of this article is to shed light on the rise to international prominence of the Italian statistician and eugenicist Corrado Gini and his appointment as the inaugural president of the Latin International Federation of Eugenic Societies in October 1935. It explores the numerous pioneering, still little known, investigations he undertook with a few Italian scientists and some foreign scholars, in order to analyze the role played by “isolation,” and “racial hybridization” in the formation and degeneration of human races. After outlining Gini’s professional and political trajectory, the article focuses on the scientific expeditions launched by the Italian Committee for the Study of Population Problems between 1933 and 1940 under his stewardship.
L’histoire de la santé publique nous donne à voir une impressionnante variété de tentatives pour ... more L’histoire de la santé publique nous donne à voir une impressionnante variété de tentatives pour normer les pratiques sociales. Ces projets de gouvernement des corps, saisis individuellement ou agrégés en populations, ont successivement ou simultanément pris la forme de restrictions et d’encadrement des déplacements dans l’espace (avec les quarantaines et les entreprises d’assainissement urbain) ; d’une régulation de la reproduction et des relations avec « l’environnement » (le grouillement d..
L’objet de cet article est de contribuer a l’approfondissement de la reflexion sur l’interet hist... more L’objet de cet article est de contribuer a l’approfondissement de la reflexion sur l’interet historique des travaux de Michel Foucault en mobilisant une configuration conceptuelle composee de categories apparues a differents moments de sa reflexion. Les logiques et le mode operatoire de la « biopolitique » contemporaine sont ici analyses a partir de l’etude des transformations des actions de prevention en sante publique, en France, au XXe siecle. Apres avoir retrace rapidement l’evolution des manieres de concevoir les messages de prevention et des supports privilegies, de l’entre-deux-guerres jusqu’au tournant des annees 1970, on revient sur les conditions de l’invention, quelques annees plus tard, d’une nouvelle forme d’action publique : la « grande campagne nationale de prevention », inspiree de la publicite commerciale (avec ses « spots » televisuels et radiophoniques) et des campagnes de « securite routiere ». La transformation radicale du mode de communication privilegie par le Comite Francais d’education pour la sante (CFES), amorcee des la fin des annees 1970, et l’attention croissante portee a l’etude de la reception des films et slogans par le « public cible » font l’objet d’une analyse approfondie. Tout au long de l’article, l’ensemble des questions sous-jacentes aux evolutions de la communication sanitaire sont analysees au prisme de concepts foucaldiens : « dispositifs de securite », dont on precise en quoi ils different des disciplines et quelles consequences en decoulent, en termes d’analyses empiriques ; « problematisation » ; et « subjectivation ».
The essay analyzes the mobilization of French demographers in "the fight against alcoholism&... more The essay analyzes the mobilization of French demographers in "the fight against alcoholism" after the Second World War. Particular attention is paid to their role in the scientific and political re-problematization of this quintessentially French "social plague," which had hitherto remained the province of physicians. The interest in alcoholism manifested by the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) only reflected the growing anxiety over the demographic impact of alcoholism in "populationist" circles since the interwar period. As a result, INED researchers were encouraged by their director, Alfred Sauvy, and the head of the institute’s scientific committee, Robert Debre, to research the issue thoroughly, and provide expertise to the High Committee for Study and Information on Alcoholism (HCEIA). Paradoxically, instead of adding scientific credibility to the populationists’ fight against "social plagues," their intervention paved ...
In the second half of the twentieth century, epidemiology came to shape public health discourses ... more In the second half of the twentieth century, epidemiology came to shape public health discourses and practices to an unprecedented extent. The chapter explores the transformation of the discipline after World War Two and analyses the crucial debate on the notion of "causation" that sprung from the growing interest in non-transmissible, chronic diseases. A landmark in this history was the controversy over the interpretation of the statistical relationship between smoking and lung cancer prompted by American and British publications in 1950. This sometimes heated debate also provided Austin Bradford Hill with the opportunity to set out his "pragmatics" of risk factor epidemiology.
L'histoire de la statistique en medecine et sante publique est ponctuee de moments de redefin... more L'histoire de la statistique en medecine et sante publique est ponctuee de moments de redefinition radicale des styles de pensee dominants.
The purpose of this chapter is to analyse how, from the 1970s onwards, the organization in charge... more The purpose of this chapter is to analyse how, from the 1970s onwards, the organization in charge of planning and implementing health education in France was led to reflect on the true effect on the public of the films, radio messages, posters, etc. it produced. After detailing how a tiny group of ‘modernizers’ aimed to harness the apparently pervasive power of advertising for the benefit of public health, I explore the difficulties they encountered in their attempt to evaluate their mass media campaigns. Interestingly, the conception of human behaviour and risk taking that underlay the evaluative method which they devised for that purpose strongly echoes some of Michel Foucault’s most famous analyses on what he termed ‘problematization’ and ‘subjectification’ processes.
Abstract The claim that anti‐malaria drugs, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, can cure COVID‐19... more Abstract The claim that anti‐malaria drugs, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, can cure COVID‐19 became a focus of fierce political battles that pitted promoters of these pharmaceuticals, Presidents Bolsonaro and Trump among them, against “medical elites.” At the center of these battles are different meanings of effectiveness in medicine, the complex role of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) in proving such effectiveness, the task of medical experts and the state in regulating pharmaceuticals, patients’ activism, and the collective production of medical knowledge. This article follows the trajectory of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as anti‐COVID‐19 drugs, focusing on the reception of views of their main scientific promoter, the French infectious disease specialist, Didier Raoult. The surprising career of these drugs, our text proposes, is fundamentally a political event, not in the narrow sense of engaging specific political fractions, but in the much broader sense of the politics of public participation in science.
This article follows the introduction of COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnostic test... more This article follows the introduction of COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnostic tests in France. It shows how, at the intersection of science, medicine, politics, and policy-making, the test, trace, and isolate (TTI) strategy played out during the first months of the pandemic against a backcloth of multiple shortages. In so doing, the authors move beyond trite explanations (such as ‘French public health’s backwardness’) to highlight how successive policy inflections affected the national response to the pandemic. The piece analyses the shifting French political discourse surrounding (scarce) COVID-19 tests while exploring ad-hoc regulations and guidelines as well as the intense ‘bricolage’ that they triggered in the field of clinical medicine. The authors contend that the limitations of the testing infrastructure in France during the first half of 2020 shaped the decision to resort to lockdown. The research article sheds light on two coexisting registers of professional...
This paper aims at contributing to ongoing reflections among historians on the empirical uses of ... more This paper aims at contributing to ongoing reflections among historians on the empirical uses of Michel Foucault’s analyses by reflecting on a series of partly interrelated concepts that appeared at different moments in his work. The social reasons for and practicalities of contemporary “biopolitics” are analyzed through a study of the transformations of public health campaigns promoting preventive measures in France in the 20th century. I begin by briefly reassessing the evolution in the way health messages were conceived and various (audio) visual media were used, from the interwar period to the early 1970s. Then, I expound the context of the invention, a few years later, of a new form of public health action: the “large national campaign of prevention,” drawn from commercial advertising and road safety campaigns. Finally, I analyze the radical reframing of its communication strategy undertaken by the French Committee for Health Education, from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, as ...
The aim of this article is to shed light on the rise to international prominence of the Italian s... more The aim of this article is to shed light on the rise to international prominence of the Italian statistician and eugenicist Corrado Gini and his appointment as the inaugural president of the Latin International Federation of Eugenic Societies in October 1935. It explores the numerous pioneering, still little known, investigations he undertook with a few Italian scientists and some foreign scholars, in order to analyze the role played by “isolation,” and “racial hybridization” in the formation and degeneration of human races. After outlining Gini’s professional and political trajectory, the article focuses on the scientific expeditions launched by the Italian Committee for the Study of Population Problems between 1933 and 1940 under his stewardship.
L’histoire de la santé publique nous donne à voir une impressionnante variété de tentatives pour ... more L’histoire de la santé publique nous donne à voir une impressionnante variété de tentatives pour normer les pratiques sociales. Ces projets de gouvernement des corps, saisis individuellement ou agrégés en populations, ont successivement ou simultanément pris la forme de restrictions et d’encadrement des déplacements dans l’espace (avec les quarantaines et les entreprises d’assainissement urbain) ; d’une régulation de la reproduction et des relations avec « l’environnement » (le grouillement d..
L’objet de cet article est de contribuer a l’approfondissement de la reflexion sur l’interet hist... more L’objet de cet article est de contribuer a l’approfondissement de la reflexion sur l’interet historique des travaux de Michel Foucault en mobilisant une configuration conceptuelle composee de categories apparues a differents moments de sa reflexion. Les logiques et le mode operatoire de la « biopolitique » contemporaine sont ici analyses a partir de l’etude des transformations des actions de prevention en sante publique, en France, au XXe siecle. Apres avoir retrace rapidement l’evolution des manieres de concevoir les messages de prevention et des supports privilegies, de l’entre-deux-guerres jusqu’au tournant des annees 1970, on revient sur les conditions de l’invention, quelques annees plus tard, d’une nouvelle forme d’action publique : la « grande campagne nationale de prevention », inspiree de la publicite commerciale (avec ses « spots » televisuels et radiophoniques) et des campagnes de « securite routiere ». La transformation radicale du mode de communication privilegie par le Comite Francais d’education pour la sante (CFES), amorcee des la fin des annees 1970, et l’attention croissante portee a l’etude de la reception des films et slogans par le « public cible » font l’objet d’une analyse approfondie. Tout au long de l’article, l’ensemble des questions sous-jacentes aux evolutions de la communication sanitaire sont analysees au prisme de concepts foucaldiens : « dispositifs de securite », dont on precise en quoi ils different des disciplines et quelles consequences en decoulent, en termes d’analyses empiriques ; « problematisation » ; et « subjectivation ».
The essay analyzes the mobilization of French demographers in "the fight against alcoholism&... more The essay analyzes the mobilization of French demographers in "the fight against alcoholism" after the Second World War. Particular attention is paid to their role in the scientific and political re-problematization of this quintessentially French "social plague," which had hitherto remained the province of physicians. The interest in alcoholism manifested by the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) only reflected the growing anxiety over the demographic impact of alcoholism in "populationist" circles since the interwar period. As a result, INED researchers were encouraged by their director, Alfred Sauvy, and the head of the institute’s scientific committee, Robert Debre, to research the issue thoroughly, and provide expertise to the High Committee for Study and Information on Alcoholism (HCEIA). Paradoxically, instead of adding scientific credibility to the populationists’ fight against "social plagues," their intervention paved ...
In the second half of the twentieth century, epidemiology came to shape public health discourses ... more In the second half of the twentieth century, epidemiology came to shape public health discourses and practices to an unprecedented extent. The chapter explores the transformation of the discipline after World War Two and analyses the crucial debate on the notion of "causation" that sprung from the growing interest in non-transmissible, chronic diseases. A landmark in this history was the controversy over the interpretation of the statistical relationship between smoking and lung cancer prompted by American and British publications in 1950. This sometimes heated debate also provided Austin Bradford Hill with the opportunity to set out his "pragmatics" of risk factor epidemiology.
L'histoire de la statistique en medecine et sante publique est ponctuee de moments de redefin... more L'histoire de la statistique en medecine et sante publique est ponctuee de moments de redefinition radicale des styles de pensee dominants.
The purpose of this chapter is to analyse how, from the 1970s onwards, the organization in charge... more The purpose of this chapter is to analyse how, from the 1970s onwards, the organization in charge of planning and implementing health education in France was led to reflect on the true effect on the public of the films, radio messages, posters, etc. it produced. After detailing how a tiny group of ‘modernizers’ aimed to harness the apparently pervasive power of advertising for the benefit of public health, I explore the difficulties they encountered in their attempt to evaluate their mass media campaigns. Interestingly, the conception of human behaviour and risk taking that underlay the evaluative method which they devised for that purpose strongly echoes some of Michel Foucault’s most famous analyses on what he termed ‘problematization’ and ‘subjectification’ processes.
Abstract The claim that anti‐malaria drugs, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, can cure COVID‐19... more Abstract The claim that anti‐malaria drugs, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, can cure COVID‐19 became a focus of fierce political battles that pitted promoters of these pharmaceuticals, Presidents Bolsonaro and Trump among them, against “medical elites.” At the center of these battles are different meanings of effectiveness in medicine, the complex role of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) in proving such effectiveness, the task of medical experts and the state in regulating pharmaceuticals, patients’ activism, and the collective production of medical knowledge. This article follows the trajectory of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as anti‐COVID‐19 drugs, focusing on the reception of views of their main scientific promoter, the French infectious disease specialist, Didier Raoult. The surprising career of these drugs, our text proposes, is fundamentally a political event, not in the narrow sense of engaging specific political fractions, but in the much broader sense of the politics of public participation in science.
This article follows the introduction of COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnostic test... more This article follows the introduction of COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnostic tests in France. It shows how, at the intersection of science, medicine, politics, and policy-making, the test, trace, and isolate (TTI) strategy played out during the first months of the pandemic against a backcloth of multiple shortages. In so doing, the authors move beyond trite explanations (such as ‘French public health’s backwardness’) to highlight how successive policy inflections affected the national response to the pandemic. The piece analyses the shifting French political discourse surrounding (scarce) COVID-19 tests while exploring ad-hoc regulations and guidelines as well as the intense ‘bricolage’ that they triggered in the field of clinical medicine. The authors contend that the limitations of the testing infrastructure in France during the first half of 2020 shaped the decision to resort to lockdown. The research article sheds light on two coexisting registers of professional...
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