Objectives

The aim of the research project is to evaluate the hypothesis that the emerging field of 'the new brain sciences' is having as significant a social, political and personal impact in the 21st century as did the birth of psychological conceptions of personhood and their associated ways of thinking and acting in the 20th century.

The project will specifically:

• Chart the social, political, economic, scientific and technological conditions for the emergence of these new ways of thinking and identify the key actors and thought communities involved, using approaches from previous work undertaken by Professor Nikolas Rose, Fleck's analysis of thought collectives, and current developments in descriptive sociology and field analysis. One of the aims will thus be to develop conceptual tools to understand such processes and contribute to more general questions concerning the changing role of the human sciences in 'advanced liberal democracies’, the role of these forms of knowledge and expertise in 'creating phenomena', and the relations between knowledge, technology, authority and subjectivity.
   
• Examine the impact of these developments in key practices, through specific case studies of approaches to mental distress, in the courtroom and criminal justice system, and in the military and security apparatus. This will provide the basis for judgments about their implications and contribute to policy debates about the regulation and use of these knowledges and technologies in psychiatric, forensic, penal and military settings.
   
• Analyse the impact of these developments on the divisions of the normal and the pathological, on distinctions between therapy, reform, normalisation and enhancement, and on ideas of risk management, susceptibility and prevention in psychiatry.
   
• Examine the consequences of these developments for identity and subjectivity, examining narratives of selfhood and distress, and advice to individuals on self management techniques, thus contributing to the field that Professor Nikolas Rose and others have termed 'historical ontology'.

The research will contribute to theory and methods in sociology, social history, sociology of control, social studies of science and technology, and the sociology of identity. In particular it will contribute to current sociological debates about the methodology and analytical techniques required for a 'descriptive sociology' of complex interactions.

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