The Biopolitics of Dementia: A Neurocritical Perspective

Dementia studies are increasingly important due to the growing public profile of the condition and the research economy it has created. This book argues that a neuropsychiatric biopolitics of dementia positions dementia as a cognitive decline caused by discrete brain diseases, which is widely misunderstood by the public and will one day be overcome through technoscience. However, this biopolitics generates several problems, such as the failure of drug discovery, the spread of stigma, the perpetuation of social inequalities, and the lack of support available to people affected by dementia. This book explores these problems and the relations between them, revealing how they are facilitated by neuro-agnostic dementia studies that lack robust biopolitical critiques and sociopolitical alternatives. It makes the case for a more biopolitically engaged neurocritical dementia studies and shows how such a tradition might be realized through the promotion of a promissory sociopolitics of dementia.

Format: Hardback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 24 November 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This book explores how dementia studies relates to dementia’s growing public profile and corresponding research economy.

The book argues that a neuropsychiatric biopolitics of dementia positions dementia as a syndrome of cognitive decline, caused by discrete brain diseases, distinct from ageing, widely misunderstood by the public, that will one day be overcome through technoscience. This biopolitics generates dementia’s public profile and is implicated in several problems, including the failure of drug discovery, the spread of stigma, the perpetuation of social inequalities and the lack of support that is available to people affected by dementia. Through a failure to critically engage with neuropsychiatric biopolitics, much dementia studies is complicit in these problems.

Drawing on insights from critical psychiatry and critical gerontology, this book explores these problems and the relations between them, revealing how they are facilitated by neuro-agnostic dementia studies work that lacks robust biopolitical critiques and sociopolitical alternatives. In response, the book makes the case for a more biopolitically engaged "neurocritical" dementia studies and shows how such a tradition might be realised through the promotion of a promissory sociopolitics of dementia.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license. Funded by University of Manchester, UK.

Weight: 660g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032504469