Making Up Persons

Bibliographic Data

ID4564403
AuthorsMatthew Wolf‐meyer (0000-0001-7249-9726, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, corresponding author)
Year2025
Pages1-15
Publication date2025-04-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedical Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0145-9740 • E-ISSN: 1545-5882
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01459740.2025.2487669
PMID40205771
OpenAlexW4409344520
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited72

Personhood is alternatively accepted as something that is innate in individuals or subject to processes of attribution that rely on the existence of specific capacities. Taking Ian Hacking's discussion of "dynamic nominalism" as a point of departure, I focus on how the categorization of difference makes "people" into a "person" or not, in relation to the legitimacy of their needs and desires. To explicate, I turn to Lorna Rhodes' Total Confinement and Neely Myers' Recovery's Edge and demonstrate how ideas of personhood's innateness or attributability reify conceptions of need and desire, particularly associated with experiences of mental disorder and psychosis

Sociology · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Medicine

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