Neurotechnology Goes to Polish School. An Ethnographic Story About Scanning ADHD

Anna Witeska-Młynarczyk

Published: 2019-12-15

Vol. 40 (2019)

Neurotechnology Goes to Polish School. An Ethnographic Story About Scanning ADHD

Anna Witeska-Młynarczyk

Abstract

In a public primary school in a middle sized Polish town, research was conducted in which a number of children were diagnosed with a new tool for identifying ADHD. This situation serves as the point of departure for an ethnographic reflection devoted to contemporary practices of diagnosing children’s mental health. The screening programs, which are more frequently permeating Polish schools, generate a category of “patients-in-waiting”, who can be defined as children, who remain in an intermediate position between illness and normalcy. It is they who are the potential recipients of further diagnostic acts and therapies and they co-constitute a dynamically developing area of neuroeconomy.

Keywords:

ADHD, neurotechnology, diagnosis, medicalisation, Poland, patients-in-waiting, neuroeconomy

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Witeska-Młynarczyk, A. (2019). Neurotechnology Goes to Polish School. An Ethnographic Story About Scanning ADHD. Ethnologia Polona, 40, 67 –. Retrieved from https://journals.iaepan.pl/ethp/article/view/23

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Anna Witeska-Młynarczyk

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6300-8083

Affiliation:

Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Warsaw, Poland

Bio Statement (e.g., department and rank)

PhD in Social Anthropology at the University College London in 2010, under supervision od Dr Michael Stewart and Dr Alex Pillen.

MA in Sociology and Social Anthropology at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.