Ujarzmienie czy legitymizacja? Normalizacyjne aspekty dyskursów eksperckich
Subjectification or Legitimization? The Normalizing Aspects of Expert Discourses

Summary/Abstract: Expert discourses are often viewed, following Foucault, as the means of normalization and subjectification of individuals. In this perspective, normalization is understood as a way of regulating individual practice and identity by subsuming them under normal/pathological dichotomy established by the power/knowledge networks. In my paper this one-sided approach to the social consequences of expert discourses put into question by highlighting the ways in which ‘normalization’ – understood more broadly than in the Foucaultian tradition – can underwrite individual subjectivity and agency, helping individuals to develop coherent and socially acceptable identities. Arguments for this standpoint are drawn from the theory of reflexive modernization by Anthony Giddens and a brief case study of the impact the Kinsey reports on the sexuality of American males and females (a paradigmatic example of a ‘normalizing discourse’) had on sexual identities in the United States.

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