The gaps in the gaze in South African hospitals

Social Science & Medicine
Diana Gibson

Abstract

Analysis of health care systems, especially hospitals, could benefit from Foucault's description of the medical gaze and the panopticon. Foucault's perspective sheds new light on the South African transformation from an oppressive to a more democratic State and is played out in particular ways in hospital settings. Analyses of the South African health care system and its interface with patients in hospitals seldom draw on the work of Foucault, despite its pertinent description of the diffuse and insidious forms of social surveillance (the 'gaze') and processes of 'normalization' brought about in panoptical settings. The gaze has become a metaphor for the processes whereby disciplinary 'technologies', together with the emergence of a normative social science, discipline both the mind and body of the individual, as in my example of a medicalised institutional setting. Transformation from an oppressive State system to a democratic South Africa has impacted in particular ways on the hospital setting. Instead of being subject to the constant surveillance of the gaze of the State or of medicine, there are numerous instances where patients to all intents become 'invisible', and end up beyond its perimeters. In the hospital, as in the ...Continue Reading

Citations

Jan 15, 2015·International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health·Natasha KhamisaDragan Ilic
Jul 18, 2009·Social Science & Medicine·Joshua D EvansPaul T Kingsbury
Jul 14, 2012·Journal of Clinical Nursing·Gina Görgens-Ekermans, Tamari Brand
Jan 14, 2012·International Journal of Palliative Nursing·Laura Mary Campbell
Jun 21, 2019·Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness·Valeria CaramelloMerritt C Schreiber

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