Enrico Mora

Subjectivity, health and gender: an approach to chronified pain through the Psychosocial Gender Diagnostic methodology / Subjetividad, salud y género: una aproximación al dolor cronificado mediante la metodología del Diagnóstico Psicosocial de Género

Abstract This paper bases itself on a psychological perspective to make a theoretical and methodological proposal that shifts the concept of health towards the crossing point between biomedical and social sciences. To that end, it is suggested that the concept of Subjectivity should be placed at the centre of the discipline of psychology, understanding it from the theoretical perspective that intersects between post-structuralism, psycho-dynamic theory and gender. The objective of the article is to make this proposal through a case study about chronic pain without organic cause, an emerging, contemporary, controversial malaise that is becoming increasingly common, called Fibromyalgia in the biopsychomedical field, and which affects mainly — but not only — women. In order to pursue this goal, a new methodological instrument was developed: the psychosocial gender diagnostic, oriented toward capturing the dynamics of chronic pain. This methodology facilitates the integration of the connections between subjectivity, gender and health, while at the same time problematizes the excessive medicalization of modern day life.

La globalización del cuidado y sus cadenas: un estudio de caso = The Globalization of care and its chains: a case study

In this text we analyzed an externalization of a chain of care and its conversion into a service from Catalonia to the Philippines. We identified the shifts of gender position for the women implied: from the Catalan employers to the Philippine domestic workers. We also indicated the ambiguous and diffuse limits that installed between care and service relations under mercantile relations. The field research was performed both in Catalonia as well as in the Philippines. We used biographical interviews, interviews aimed at expert personnel, documentary and statistical analysis. For the object of this paper we leaned mainly on the interviews conducted with Philippine domestic workers, Catalan employers of domestic workers, and to expert personnel on migration, gender and domestic work of Catalonia and the Philippines. The techniques of analysis used were content analysis and discourse analysis