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Entrepreneurial Patients: Expressions of Neoliberal subjectivity in the Context of POTS

Jupiter, Sixten LU (2025) SANK03 20251
Social Anthropology
Abstract
This thesis explores how individuals experiencing Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) constitute themselves as entrepreneurial subjects within contemporary neoliberal culture. Through 6 semi-structured interviews with Swedish women suffering from POTS, this study explores the subjectivities formed at the intersection of chronic illness and neoliberal regimes of truth. Drawing on Foucauldian theories of subjectivation, supplemented by the work of Nikolas Rose and Paul Rabinow, the analysis highlights the ethical practices and self-technologies through which informants navigate life with chronic illness. The findings suggest that POTS imposes a rupture in neoliberal self-making by limiting individuals’ capacity to engage in... (More)
This thesis explores how individuals experiencing Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) constitute themselves as entrepreneurial subjects within contemporary neoliberal culture. Through 6 semi-structured interviews with Swedish women suffering from POTS, this study explores the subjectivities formed at the intersection of chronic illness and neoliberal regimes of truth. Drawing on Foucauldian theories of subjectivation, supplemented by the work of Nikolas Rose and Paul Rabinow, the analysis highlights the ethical practices and self-technologies through which informants navigate life with chronic illness. The findings suggest that POTS imposes a rupture in neoliberal self-making by limiting individuals’ capacity to engage in practices of entrepreneurial subjectivity, such as exercise and work. However, rather than exiting the neoliberal mode of subjectivation, this study shows how patients reconstitute themselves as entrepreneurial patients - somatic individuals who engage in self-governance through research, advocacy, and strategic interaction with medical institutions. The clinical encounter becomes a crucial site for the negotiation of legitimacy, wherein new entrepreneurial ethical practices function as the means for the creation of new modes of subjectivation. Thus, this thesis argue that POTS produces a sick subjectivity that simultaneously contests and reproduces neoliberal ideals, illustrating the inherent ambivalence of contemporary ethopolitics. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Jupiter, Sixten LU
supervisor
organization
course
SANK03 20251
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
POTS, Subjectivation, Neoliberalism, Ethopolitics, Social anthropology
language
English
id
9199158
date added to LUP
2025-06-15 14:07:47
date last changed
2025-06-15 14:07:47
@misc{9199158,
  abstract     = {{This thesis explores how individuals experiencing Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) constitute themselves as entrepreneurial subjects within contemporary neoliberal culture. Through 6 semi-structured interviews with Swedish women suffering from POTS, this study explores the subjectivities formed at the intersection of chronic illness and neoliberal regimes of truth. Drawing on Foucauldian theories of subjectivation, supplemented by the work of Nikolas Rose and Paul Rabinow, the analysis highlights the ethical practices and self-technologies through which informants navigate life with chronic illness. The findings suggest that POTS imposes a rupture in neoliberal self-making by limiting individuals’ capacity to engage in practices of entrepreneurial subjectivity, such as exercise and work. However, rather than exiting the neoliberal mode of subjectivation, this study shows how patients reconstitute themselves as entrepreneurial patients - somatic individuals who engage in self-governance through research, advocacy, and strategic interaction with medical institutions. The clinical encounter becomes a crucial site for the negotiation of legitimacy, wherein new entrepreneurial ethical practices function as the means for the creation of new modes of subjectivation. Thus, this thesis argue that POTS produces a sick subjectivity that simultaneously contests and reproduces neoliberal ideals, illustrating the inherent ambivalence of contemporary ethopolitics.}},
  author       = {{Jupiter, Sixten}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Entrepreneurial Patients: Expressions of Neoliberal subjectivity in the Context of POTS}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}