Jennifer Crane and Claire
Sewell,
University of Warwick
Abstract:
The overarching theme of
this one-day conference was to situate labelling theory, as
conceptualised by
Professor Hacking, in the study of post-war history. The post-war
period
witnessed the emergence of numerous new categories and classifications
of
people, through the development of labels including 'schizophrenic',
'gambler',
and 'adolescent'. This conference drew together speakers and delegates
from a
range of disciplines in order to raise a set of questions about these
'made up
people'. The conference aimed to facilitate a workshop-style
atmosphere, with a
key note speech by Professor Hacking, several panel sessions, and a
roundtable
discussion.
Keywords:
Making
Up People, Ian Hacking, labelling theory, post-war Britain, post-war
history
The principal goal of this
one-day conference was to
situate labelling theory—a concept developed by philosopher Ian
Hacking—in the
study of post-war history. The post-war
period witnessed the emergence of a number of new
categories and classifications of people, through the development of
‘labels’ such
as 'schizophrenic', 'gambler', and 'adolescent'. This conference drew
together
speakers and delegates from a range of disciplines in order to explore
a set of
questions about what Hacking termed 'made up people'. Hacking gave a
keynote
speech at the conference.
Just under thirty years
ago, Hacking first introduced his
theory of ‘making up people.’ Hacking’s concept was
inspired by the work of
philosopher Michel Foucault, sociologists within the Chicago
School—including Erving
Goffman and Howard Becker—and by the anthropologist Mary Douglas.
Hacking
outlined his new approach to labelling theory during a 1986 conference
entitled
‘Reconstructing Individualism’, held at University of
Stanford. A key component
of Hacking's theory was the idea of 'dynamic nominalism.' Hacking
explained
this term as follows:
The
claim of dynamic nominalism is not that there
was a kind of person who came increasingly to be recognised by
bureaucrats or
by students of human nature, but rather that a kind of person came into
being
at the same time as the kind itself was being invented. In some cases,
that is,
our classifications and our classes conspire to emerge hand in hand,
each
egging the other on. (Hacking, 1986: 228)
Following his
paper at the 1986 conference, Hacking embarked on what he calls his
'making up
people project'. Through this project, Hacking has analysed the
emergence of a
number of different types of ‘made up people’, including
child abusers and
people with split-personality disorder and autism.
Over the thirty years since
he began the ‘making up
people’ project, Hacking has developed and expanded upon his
theories with the
addition of the concepts of 'moving targets' and 'looping' (Hacking,
2007:
285-318). Hacking argues that ‘made up people’ become
‘moving targets’ as they
change in reaction to politically, medically, and socially imposed
categories
and classifications. The process is cyclical: as ‘made up
people’ change, this in
turn changes the nature of the category itself. 'Names interact with
the named'
in a process that Hacking refers to as a ‘looping effect’
(Hacking, 2006:
23-26). As he developed and expanded his theory in a body of
publications,
Hacking has persuasively argued that the application of labels
fundamentally
changes how those who are labelled are understood, how they behave, and
how
they live. The concepts which emerged within Hacking's ‘making up
people’
project have influenced the work of scholars from a wide range of
disciplines,
often in ways that Hacking himself did not originally anticipate or
intend.
In his keynote speech at
the ‘Made Up People’ conference,
Hacking gave an overview of over forty of his publications relating to
the ‘making
up people’ project. Hacking’s overview illustrated the
extent to which the
project has changed and developed since its inception. The project was
shaped
by Hacking's interest in the new categories of people that he saw
emerging—each
in a unique way. Indeed, Hacking remarked that he saw 'no reason to
suppose
that we shall ever tell two identical stories of two different
instances of
making up people' (Madsen, 2013: 36). Hacking's reiteration of this
point at
the close of his key note resonated with the aim of the conference: to
interrogate whether Hacking's concept of ‘making up people’
can usefully be
applied to an ostensibly disparate range of medical, social, and
political
categories, studied by scholars who apply this theoretical tool in many
different ways.
Following the keynote,
Claire Sewell (University of Warwick) presented a
paper entitled
'“A Vital Role”: The Emergence of the Carer for Mental
Disorder in 1960s and
1970s Britain.' Sewell demonstrated that Hacking's theory of dynamic
nominalism
offered a route into an area of study previously overlooked by
historians: the
place of the family in post-war British mental health care (Thomson,
1998: 2).
Whilst families have provided care for relatives with mental illnesses
and
disabilities for centuries, Sewell argued that the category of the
family carer
for mental disorder did not emerge in Britain until the 1960s-1970s. In
the
context of the closure of long-stay mental hospitals, and moves towards
a
policy of community care, the category of the family carer became more
visible.
At the same time as the prevalence of familial care of mental disorder
was seen
to increase, various interested parties--including social scientific
researchers, social policy makers, and non-governmental
organisations--debated
the category of the family carer. As a result, the category of the
carer become
more formally acknowledged and negotiated. By 1989, the white paper Caring for People identified family
carers as the main providers of community care (Department of Health
and Social
Security, 1989: 83). Thus, Sewell’s paper demonstrated how
Hacking's theory of
dynamic nominalism could offer new insight into the histories of the
post-war
family and community care.
Jennifer
Crane (University
of Warwick) gave the next paper at the ‘Made Up People’
conference. Crane’s
paper was entitled the 'Changing Conceptions of Child Abusers between
1960-2013', and drew upon Hacking's article, 'The Making and Molding of
Child
Abuse' (Hacking 1991). In this article, which was based on research
conducted
in the mid-1980s, Hacking argued that 'the very idea of child abuse has
been in
constant flux over the past thirty years' (1991: 253). A variety of
terms have
been deployed to label child abusers since 1960, when the 'battered
child syndrome'
was first conceptualised. These terms include 'paedophile', 'stranger
danger',
'child molester', 'sex offender', and 'perpetrator.' Crane’s
paper highlighted
an apparent contradiction in the conceptualisation of child abusers,
evident from
1960 to the present day. This contradiction is that there has been a
tendency
for policy makers, media, and public to simultaneously view child
abusers as,
on the one hand, inherently inhuman and dangerous 'others', deserving
of
nothing but punishment and contempt, and, on the other hand, as
troubled or
even ill individuals in need of help and rehabilitation. In 1960s
Britain,
social policymakers and medical researchers tended to focus upon
‘battered
families’, who they understood to be both the cause of, and the
solution to, the
‘battered child syndrome.’ In modern Britain, Crane argued,
these dual
conceptions persist. Child abusers are simultaneously constructed as
'monsters'
and 'perpetrators.' In highlighting these contingent presentations,
Crane suggested
that the social construction of child abusers remains in 'flux', and
prone to
simplification and dichotomy. Therefore, Crane’s paper
demonstrated that
labelling theory continues to provide a useful tool for historians and
policy-makers to better understand and contribute to the important--yet
often
emotive and politicised--debates around child abuse.
The next speaker, political
scientist Christopher
Browning (University of Warwick) has written that 'over the last 15-20
years,
the concept of nation branding has gained considerable currency, with
various
countries initiating branding campaigns' (Browning, 2013: 1). In his
conference
paper, 'Citizens: ‘Nation Branding, Subjectivity and
Citizenship', Browning
demonstrated that Hacking's theory of ‘making up people’ is
not only a useful tool
for the study of ‘types’ of people, but can also be applied
to the study of nation-branding. Browning's
paper considered how nations present themselves to foreign markets, and
how
this process of nation-branding reflects the changing nature of the
international system and ideas about national identity. How a nation
brands itself
externally also changes domestic conceptions of what it means to be a
good
citizen. Illustrating this, Browning noted a shift from the notion of
the 'good
citizen' as an idea based on the concept of heroism, to one rooted in
consumerism.
Shal Bar-Haim (Birkbeck,
University of London) gave the
next paper, entitled 'Motherhood and the Emergence of the
"Regressed'''. Focusing
particularly on the Hungarian psychoanalyst Sandor Ferenczi, Bar-Haim
discussed
the emergence of the category of 'regressed' in British psychoanalysis
after the
Second World War. In this period, the term ‘regression’
came to signify the
withdrawal of an individual, usually following a mental crisis, into an
early developmental
stage of their childhood. In 'Making Up People', Hacking argued that,
in the
case of multiple personality disorder, 'the category and the people in
it
emerged hand in hand' (Hacking, 1986: 165). Bar-Haim argued that the
inter-subjective diagnosis of regression, created between patient and
doctor
during psychoanalysis, could similarly be understood as a process of
‘labelling’
from above and below.
The final paper of the day,
'Munchausen: Self-harm, Child
Abuse and the Internet', Chris Millard (QMUL) called for a reassessment
of
Hacking's ‘making up people.’ Considering the case study of
Munchausen syndrome,
Millard pointed to the limitations of the concept of ‘making up
people’ as a
study of the process of identity formation. Hacking reflected in 2009,
'I do
think there is a widespread phenomenon I called "looping".
Classifying people has an effect on how they conceive of themselves,
they
internalize how they are classified' (Madsen et al, 2013: 37).
Munchausen
syndrome is a condition 'whereby a patient deliberately simulates
symptoms of
an illness in order to gain admission to hospital and gain the sick
role'
(Doherty and Sheehan, 2010: 179). Millard argued that in the case of
Munchausen
syndrome, the very processes of identity formation theorised in
‘making up
people’ are disrupted, because patients refuse to accept their
diagnosis by
psychiatric and medical professionals. The theory of ‘making up
people’,
therefore, cannot be uncritically applied to the study of any and every
classification.
The papers presented at the
conference demonstrated that
the ideas which emerged from Hacking's ‘making up people’
project are still
useful to scholars working in a range of disciplines--particularly when
used as
a framework through which to open up new areas of inquiry. Finally, in
a
roundtable discussion, the conference considered the applicability of
Hacking's
concept of ‘making up people’ to the current academic turn
towards epigenetics
and neuroscience. These emergent fields claim to offer new biological
ways of
understanding the make-up of groups of people, and even society
generally. Some
delegates believed these disciplines had the potential to provide a new
perspectives
on the questions raised by the conference. However, others cautioned
against
the reductive potential of these approaches to the study of the past,
and
emphasised the continued importance of what we might call ‘the
social.’ The
conference itself demonstrated the importance of reconsidering
histories of the
family, medical categories, and identity. Such scholarly pursuits lend
themselves
particularly well to an interdisciplinary approach, of which ‘the
social’ must
be an integral component.
To listen to podcasts
from the Made Up People conference please visit http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/chm/events/conferences_workshops/madeuppeople/podcasts/.
The Made Up People conference was generously funded by the Wellcome
Trust, and
the Department of History and Centre for the History of Medicine at the
University of Warwick. The organisers of the conference have since
established
a Made Up People network. If you would like to join the mailing list,
please
contact c.s.l.sewell@warwick.ac.uk or j.m.crane@warwick.ac.uk.
References:
Browning,
C. (2013), 'Nation Branding, National Self-Esteem, and the Constitution
of
Subjectivity in Late Modernity', Foreign
Policy Analysis, Early View.
Department
for Health and Social Security (1989), Caring
for People: Community Care in the Next Decade and Beyond, Command
Paper
849, London: Stationary Office Books.
Doherty,
A. M. and J.D. Sheehan (2010), 'Munchausen's Syndrome: more common than
we
realize?', Irish Medical Journal, 103
(6).
Hacking,
I. (1991), ‘The Making and Molding of Child Abuse’, Critical
Inquiry,
17: 253-288
Hacking, I. (1986),
'Making Up People', in Heller, Sosna, and Wellbery (eds), Reconstructing
Individualism: Autonomy, Individuality, and the Self in
Western Thought, Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 222-236.
Hacking,
I. (2006), ‘Making Up People’, London
Review of Books, 28 (16): 23-26.
Hacking,
I. (2007), 'Kinds of People: Moving Targets', Proceedings
of the British Academy, 151: 285-318.
Madsen,
O.J., J. Servan and S. A. Øyen (2013), '"I am a philosopher of
the
particular case": An interview with the 2009 Holberg prizewinner Ian
Hacking', History of the Human Sciences,
26 (3).
Thomson,
M. (1998), The Problem of Mental
Deficiency: Eugenics, Democracy and Social Policy in Britain, c.
1870-1959, Oxford:
Oxford.