Becoming Otherwise: Bettering the Self, Bettering STS?

• In Event: Becoming Otherwise: STS Inroads into Techniques of the Better Self - I: Potential

Abstract

The pervasive landscape of self-improvement and radical personal transformation is populated by a proliferation of tools and techniques to (better) manage one’s life, offering a shared ‘will to goodness’ and an exhortation of the inward turn to become a happier, healthier and wiser version of oneself. There has been much critical discussion of these tools and techniques as, for example, instruments of neo-liberalism. But we know rather little about they are used in practice.

This paper considers the possibilities to mobilize, sharpen and re-specify STS analytical tools when grappling with and unpacking ‘techniques of the better self’ in practice. The paper draws upon a variety of empirical materials – auto-ethnographic explorations of lived instances of experimentations with, incorporations and/or contestations of self-empowerment techniques; dialogic techniques and emotional work; and participant observation of personal growth workshops. It aims to challenge STS’ capacity to re-frame the issues under study, and to instigate an insightful disruption and interference into the (mostly) critical studies of the widespread phenomenon of self-improvement. We ask, what are the prospects for an STS analysis which amplifies and unpacks practices of caring for a better self and trajectories of intimate re-invention, by construing these as journeys of ‘becoming otherwise’? Methodologically, this investigation foregrounds the interstitial spaces between becoming affected by different ‘techniques of the better self’ and iteratively deploying inventive methods to open both practices and frictions for analysis.

Authors

• Sara Bea, Linköping University, Technology and Social Change

• Steve Woolgar, Linköping University