4044291

What's natural? Technoscience and the fear of cyborgs in sport

Since there are sporting competitions, there is also something like body enhancing technology. The use of performance-enhancing technical devices and supplements has a long history, stretching back to Ancient Greece and continuing within contemporary sport. While in the ancient world mostly dietary methods were used to improve performance, nowadays we deal with hormones, technical devices or even doped genes. `Human Enhancement` is a fascinating prism that reflects questions of participation, justice, equality and the autonomy of the subject in the social fields of sport. The area of elite sports is particularly affected by `human Enhancement`, according to the principle of exceeding what has come before, of aiming higher, faster and further. This paper analyses the postulated `naturalness` in the regulative and normalising function in the area of elite sports, in connection with Foucault`s theory of governmentality ant the methods of critical discourse analysis. Using different historical and current cases, the negotiating processes in relation to the argumentation logic, dynamics and resistance in shifting distinctions are presented using the fundamental documents of the IOC, IPC, CAS and IAAF. Represented through the inclusion and exclusion processes are hierarchies of the body that are (re)consolidated and transformed. The central question emerges as to how the worth of equal opportunity and fairness in regard to `naturalness` has been reconsolidated or/and transformed in the past and present.
© Copyright 2016 21st Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), Vienna, 6. -9. July 2016. Published by University of Vienna. All rights reserved.

Bibliographic Details
Subjects:
Notations:technical and natural sciences social sciences
Tagging:Robotik
Published in:21st Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), Vienna, 6. -9. July 2016
Language:English
Published: Wien University of Vienna 2016
Pages:282
Document types:congress proceedings
Level:advanced