Governmentality and biopolitic: an approach to knowledge and historical practices of occupational therapy in Chile

• Main Authors: Marcela Herrera Sandoval, Cristian Valderrama Nuñez
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Universidad de Chile 2013-12-01
• Series: Revista Chilena de Terapia Ocupacional
• Online Access: https://revistaterapiaocupacional.uchile.cl/index.php/RTO/article/view/30218
• ISSN: 0717-6767; 0719-5346

This research shows the relationship between socio-political aspects of the state, and Chile Occupational Therapy from a genealogical perspective of analysis, from this analysis is explained, how it reproduces this relationship in the knowledge and practices of Occupational Therapy (OT).It is considered as a conceptual framework for analyzing the exercise of power, two concepts developed by the author Michel Foucault governmentality and biopolitics. The OT in this context, is defned as a disciplining device , corresponding to an instrument of governance of the above.The methodology corresponds to a genealogical analysis. An analysis of speech from a Foucauldian perspective, from 5 semistructured interviews to Occupational Therapists, jointly analyzed under the same methodology , historical texts of the discipline in Chile. The unit of analysis was the political.The fndings of this research are possible to state : The conception of the subject on which he builds the foundations of OT intervention , is strongly infuenced by the conception that the State has of the subject and how it manages those lives politically . The TO is an instrument of the Chilean state biopolitical exercise, functional to the political forces that shape externally. Neoliberal governmentality During an eruption occurs in the development of the discipline, which produces dehistorization , mute and discipline to dictatorial power.