Papers by Fanny Edenroth Cato
This dissertation examines discursive practices about the highly sensitive person (HSP) from the ... more This dissertation examines discursive practices about the highly sensitive person (HSP) from the perspective of knowledge production, categorization and community formation. In contemporary Sweden it has become increasingly common to talk about oneself in terms of being constituted in a particular way, e.g., as having a brain that functions differently than the average. The HSP often represents a person with exceptional capabilities and vulnerabilities, such as a sensitive nervous system and an empathetic disposition. The HSP discourse shares commonalities with the discourse of disability activism related to neuropsychiatric diagnoses. Namely, that by using specific discursive strategies, communities are being formed. The HSP community works to counteract the negative preconceived notions about high sensitivity, and bring to light the ignorance surrounding the needs of HSPs in society. This compilation thesis consists of a summarizing introduction and three articles. The empirical m...
Barn- och ungdomsvetenskapliga institutionen, Stockholms universitet, 2019
This study analyzes twelve children's books that may be used to inform and educate both child... more This study analyzes twelve children's books that may be used to inform and educate both children and adults about children’s experiences of having a neuropsychiatric diagnosis, or of being a highly sensitive person. From the perspective of poststructuralism, and through a problematization of concepts within the field of sociology of childhood, the study examines the subject formation of sensitive girls and dis/able-bodied childhoods. In the representations of the main characters the dis/abilities are mainly portrayed as abilities. Yet, these stories also revolve around handling the children’s socially problematic behaviors and suffering. Children are seen as both competent and vulnerable agents – as beings and becomings. The article suggests that a subject formation that recurs in the books is an ideal child citizen. This type of competent child participates in the decisions concerning her body and life, and demonstrates self-reflexivity, as well as a positive attitude towards i...
Kapitel 9, Sjalvhjalpsgrupper som erfarenhetsutbyte och testa-dig-sjalv, ar skrivet av Fanny Eden... more Kapitel 9, Sjalvhjalpsgrupper som erfarenhetsutbyte och testa-dig-sjalv, ar skrivet av Fanny Edenroth Cato, Mats Borjesson och Eva Palmblad. I kapitlet beskrivs hur individer samlar sig pa internet ...
YOUNG
This article examines how young people in a Swedish online forum and in blogs engage in discussio... more This article examines how young people in a Swedish online forum and in blogs engage in discussions of one popularized psychological personality trait, the highly sensitive person (HSP), and how they draw on different positionings in discursive struggles around this category. The material is analysed with concepts from discursive psychology and post-structuralist theory in order to investigate youths’ interactions. The first is a nuanced positioning, from which youths disclose the weaknesses and strengths of being highly sensitive. Some youths become deeply invested in this kind of positioning, hence forming a HSP subjectivity. This can be opposed using contrasting positionings, which objects to norms of biosociality connected to the HSP. Lastly, there are rather distanced and investigative approaches to the HSP category. We conclude that while young people are negotiating the HSP category, they are establishing an epistemological community.
YOUNG
This article examines how young people in a Swedish online forum and in blogs engage in discussio... more This article examines how young people in a Swedish online forum and in blogs engage in discussions of one popularized psychological personality trait, the highly sensitive person (HSP), and how they draw on different positionings in discursive struggles around this category. The material is analysed with concepts from discursive psychology and post-structuralist theory in order to investigate youths’ interactions. The first is a nuanced positioning, from which youths disclose the weaknesses and strengths of being highly sensitive. Some youths become deeply invested in this kind of positioning, hence forming a HSP subjectivity. This can be opposed using contrasting positionings, which objects to norms of biosociality connected to the HSP. Lastly, there are rather distanced and investigative approaches to the HSP category. We conclude that while young people are negotiating the HSP category, they are establishing an epistemological community.
Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine
Thesis Chapters by Fanny Edenroth Cato
Fanny Edenroth Cato, 2019
This dissertation examines discursive practices about the highly sensitive person (HSP) from the ... more This dissertation examines discursive practices about the highly sensitive person (HSP) from the perspective of knowledge production, categorization and community formation. In contemporary Sweden it has become increasingly common to talk about oneself in terms of being constituted in a particular way, e.g., as having a brain that functions differently than the average. The HSP often represents a person with exceptional capabilities and vulnerabilities, such as a sensitive nervous system and an empathetic disposition. The HSP discourse shares commonalities with the discourse of disability activism related to neuropsychiatric diagnoses. Namely, that by using specific discursive strategies, communities are being formed. The HSP community works to counteract the negative preconceived notions about high sensitivity, and bring to light the ignorance surrounding the needs of HSPs in society.
This compilation thesis consists of a summarizing introduction and three articles. The empirical material covers posts from an online discussion forum for parents, and one aimed at young people, blogs composed by teenage girls, and children’s books written by different types of experts. These discursive arenas are analyzed with concepts from discursive psychology and poststructuralist theory. The results show how psychological and biomedical discourses are producing citizen subjects in relation to governing in specific social contexts. Within a Foucauldian tradition such forms of governance are termed biopolitics and biosociality.
The first article examines how the HSP category is transforming notions of good motherhood. It suggests that mothers’ interaction in an online discussion forum reflects the intensive mothering norms of child-centered parenting. Mothers share their therapeutic narratives while highlighting the problems surrounding an incomprehensible social environment and the ordeals of having a guilty conscience. Through the prism of the highly sensitive child, however, motherhood acquires new anticipatory, considerate and susceptible norms, and strategies that constitute a highly sensitive parenting style.
The second article studies how young people take different stances in discursive struggles concerning the HSP category online. The article illustrates how youths disclose the weaknesses and strengths of being highly sensitive, as well as objecting to norms of biosociality that are connected to the HSP. According to these findings young people are pioneering a new informed ethics of the self as they perform HSP subjectivity.
The third article investigates children’s books that may be used as therapeutic tools aimed at informing and educating both adults and children about girls’ experiences of being HSPs, or of having a neuropsychiatric diagnosis. In these books dis/abilities are often transformed into exceptional capabilities. Through a process of identification, the girl protagonists may come to manage their behavior and emotions according to the premise of the diagnosis, thus, redefining their personhood as ideal citizen subjects.
In conclusion, norms of biosociality and biopolitical governance regulate citizens to confess and assert their capabilities and dis/abilities, yet the discursive practices also reflect the construction of social problems and their potential solutions. Citizens appear to struggle to (re)define such problems in an identity political manner in order to (re)produce knowledge on their own terms.
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Papers by Fanny Edenroth Cato
Thesis Chapters by Fanny Edenroth Cato
This compilation thesis consists of a summarizing introduction and three articles. The empirical material covers posts from an online discussion forum for parents, and one aimed at young people, blogs composed by teenage girls, and children’s books written by different types of experts. These discursive arenas are analyzed with concepts from discursive psychology and poststructuralist theory. The results show how psychological and biomedical discourses are producing citizen subjects in relation to governing in specific social contexts. Within a Foucauldian tradition such forms of governance are termed biopolitics and biosociality.
The first article examines how the HSP category is transforming notions of good motherhood. It suggests that mothers’ interaction in an online discussion forum reflects the intensive mothering norms of child-centered parenting. Mothers share their therapeutic narratives while highlighting the problems surrounding an incomprehensible social environment and the ordeals of having a guilty conscience. Through the prism of the highly sensitive child, however, motherhood acquires new anticipatory, considerate and susceptible norms, and strategies that constitute a highly sensitive parenting style.
The second article studies how young people take different stances in discursive struggles concerning the HSP category online. The article illustrates how youths disclose the weaknesses and strengths of being highly sensitive, as well as objecting to norms of biosociality that are connected to the HSP. According to these findings young people are pioneering a new informed ethics of the self as they perform HSP subjectivity.
The third article investigates children’s books that may be used as therapeutic tools aimed at informing and educating both adults and children about girls’ experiences of being HSPs, or of having a neuropsychiatric diagnosis. In these books dis/abilities are often transformed into exceptional capabilities. Through a process of identification, the girl protagonists may come to manage their behavior and emotions according to the premise of the diagnosis, thus, redefining their personhood as ideal citizen subjects.
In conclusion, norms of biosociality and biopolitical governance regulate citizens to confess and assert their capabilities and dis/abilities, yet the discursive practices also reflect the construction of social problems and their potential solutions. Citizens appear to struggle to (re)define such problems in an identity political manner in order to (re)produce knowledge on their own terms.
This compilation thesis consists of a summarizing introduction and three articles. The empirical material covers posts from an online discussion forum for parents, and one aimed at young people, blogs composed by teenage girls, and children’s books written by different types of experts. These discursive arenas are analyzed with concepts from discursive psychology and poststructuralist theory. The results show how psychological and biomedical discourses are producing citizen subjects in relation to governing in specific social contexts. Within a Foucauldian tradition such forms of governance are termed biopolitics and biosociality.
The first article examines how the HSP category is transforming notions of good motherhood. It suggests that mothers’ interaction in an online discussion forum reflects the intensive mothering norms of child-centered parenting. Mothers share their therapeutic narratives while highlighting the problems surrounding an incomprehensible social environment and the ordeals of having a guilty conscience. Through the prism of the highly sensitive child, however, motherhood acquires new anticipatory, considerate and susceptible norms, and strategies that constitute a highly sensitive parenting style.
The second article studies how young people take different stances in discursive struggles concerning the HSP category online. The article illustrates how youths disclose the weaknesses and strengths of being highly sensitive, as well as objecting to norms of biosociality that are connected to the HSP. According to these findings young people are pioneering a new informed ethics of the self as they perform HSP subjectivity.
The third article investigates children’s books that may be used as therapeutic tools aimed at informing and educating both adults and children about girls’ experiences of being HSPs, or of having a neuropsychiatric diagnosis. In these books dis/abilities are often transformed into exceptional capabilities. Through a process of identification, the girl protagonists may come to manage their behavior and emotions according to the premise of the diagnosis, thus, redefining their personhood as ideal citizen subjects.
In conclusion, norms of biosociality and biopolitical governance regulate citizens to confess and assert their capabilities and dis/abilities, yet the discursive practices also reflect the construction of social problems and their potential solutions. Citizens appear to struggle to (re)define such problems in an identity political manner in order to (re)produce knowledge on their own terms.